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Why Dems and
Republicans Bow to the Israel Lobby
By John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
10/09/07 "New
York Times" -- -
The following is an excerpt from the Israel Lobby and U.S.
Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
Introduction
America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although
the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage,
certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The
candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues --
health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education,
immigration -- and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a
host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action
should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best
response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions,
Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's rising power? How should
the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and
reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and
many other issues, we can confidently expect lively
disagreements among the various candidates.
Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the
candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous
election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the
land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep
personal commitment to one foreign country -- Israel -- as well
as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for
the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she
fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and
make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain
firmly committed to defending Israel's interests under any and
all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize
Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States
ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who
do will probably fall by the wayside.
This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because
presidential aspirants were already proclaiming their support
for Israel in early 2007. The process began in January, when
four potential candidates spoke to Israel's annual Herzliya
Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick reported in
Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing to see who can be
most strident in defense of the Jewish State." Appearing via
satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004 vice
presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your
future is our future" and said that the bond between the United
States and Israel "will never be broken." Former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney spoke of being "in a country I love with
people I love" and, aware of Israel's deep concern about a
possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that "it is time for the world
to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be
stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
declared that "when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply
cannot compromise," while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
(R-GA) told the audience that "Israel is facing the greatest
danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory."
Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton
(D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the
powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where
she said that in this "moment of great difficulty for Israel and
great peril for Israel ... what is vital is that we stand by our
friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a
beacon of what's right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the
wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism." One
of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack
Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in
Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the
Palestinians' plight in the past and made a brief reference to
Palestinian "suffering" at a campaign appearance in March 2007,
was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly
clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam
Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have
expressed pro-Israel sentiments with equal or greater ardor.
What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement
among these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there
are profound disagreements among them on almost every other
important issue facing the United States and when it is apparent
that America's Middle East policy has gone badly awry? Why does
Israel get a free pass from presidential candidates, when its
own citizens are often deeply critical of its present policies
and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing
to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why
does Israel, and no other country in the world, receive such
consistent deference from America's leading politicians?
Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic
asset for the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an
indispensable partner in the "war on terror." Others will answer
that there is a powerful moral case for providing Israel with
unqualified support, because it is the only country in the
region that "shares our values." But neither of these arguments
stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close
relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to
defeat the terrorists who are now targeting the United States,
and it simultaneously undermines America's standing with
important allies around the world. Now that the Cold War is
over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United
States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public,
or even raise the possibility.
There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's
uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is
a strong moral case for Israel's existence and there are good
reasons for the United States to be committed to helping Israel
if its survival is in jeopardy. But given Israel's brutal
treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, moral
considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a
more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean
toward the Palestinians.
Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone
who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a
position in Congress. The real reason why American politicians
are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby.
The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations
that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel
direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not a single,
unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly
not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S. foreign policy.
It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and
gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case
within the United States and influence American foreign policy
in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state.
The various groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every
issue, although they share the desire to promote a special
relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the
efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the
activities of the Israel lobby's various elements are legitimate
forms of democratic political participation, and they are for
the most part consistent with America's long tradition of
interest group activity.
Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most
powerful interest groups in the United States, candidates for
high office pay close attention to its wishes. The individuals
and groups in the United States that make up the lobby care
deeply about Israel, and they do not want American politicians
to criticize it, even when criticism might be warranted and
might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these groups
want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first
state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout.
They all know that any politician who challenges its policies
stands little chance of becoming president.
The Lobby and the U.S. Middle East Policy
The lobby's political power is important not because it affects
what presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because
it has a significant influence on American foreign policy,
especially in the Middle East. America's actions in that
volatile region have enormous consequences for people all around
the world, especially the people who live there. Just consider
how the Bush administration's misbegotten war in Iraq has
affected the long suffering people of that shattered country:
tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee
their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no
end in sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the
United States and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both
inside and outside the region. One could hardly imagine a more
vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the United States
can have -- for good or ill -- when it unleashes the power at
its disposal.
The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the
early days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered
on educational programs or missionary work. For some, a
biblically inspired fascination with the Holy Land and the role
of Judaism in its history led to support for the idea of
restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view that was
embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by
a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history
of modest and for the most part private engagement as the
taproot of America's role in the region since World War II, and
especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today.
Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago
and World War II, the United States played no significant
security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not
aspire to one. Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour
Declaration (which expressed Britain's support for the creation
of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually
nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most significant U.S.
involvement during this period -- a fact-finding mission
dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference
under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and
Charles Crane -- concluded that the local population opposed
continued Zionist inroads and recommended against the
establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the
historian Margaret Macmillan notes, "Nobody paid the slightest
attention." The possibility of a U.S. mandate over portions of
the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued, and
Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of
the Ottoman Empire between themselves.
The United States has played an important and steadily
increasing role in Middle East security issues since World War
II, driven initially by oil, then by anti-communism and, over
time, by its growing relationship with Israel. America's first
significant involvement in the security politics of the region
was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s
(intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the
region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's
inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in
1954. After backing Israel's founding in 1948, U.S. leaders
tried to strike a balanced position between Israel and the Arabs
and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to the Jewish
state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic
interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing
decades, in response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms
sales to various Arab states, and the growing influence of
pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this dramatic
transformation in America's role in the region, it makes little
sense to try to explain current U.S. policy -- and especially
the lavish support that is now given to Israel -- by referring
to the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically
different forms of past American engagement. There was nothing
inevitable or predetermined about the current special
relationship between the United States and Israel.
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature -- and arguably
the central focus -- of America's Middle East policy has been
its relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in
fact, the United States has provided Israel with a level of
material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to
other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter
what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part
unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors
Israel over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the
Jewish state to stop building settlements and roads in the West
Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush openly
favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state, neither was
willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a reality.
The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader
Middle East that reflected Israel's preferences. Since the early
1990s, for example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily
influenced by the wishes of successive Israeli governments.
Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve
relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences,
but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie
any détente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the
two countries far apart. Another example is the Bush
administration's behavior during Israel's war against Lebanon in
the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly
criticized Israel's bombing campaign -- a campaign that killed
more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians -- but
the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute
the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly
defending Israel's behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel
undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened
Hezbollah, and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together,
results that were hardly good for either Washington or
Jerusalem.
Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S.
national security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support
for Israel and Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian
territory has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and
Islamic world, thereby increasing the threat from international
terrorism and making it harder for Washington to deal with other
problems, such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program. Because
the United States is now so unpopular within the broader region,
Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are reluctant
to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to
deal with a host of regional challenges. This situation, which
has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the
activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest
groups -- including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans,
Irish Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans --
have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions that they
favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from
what the American national interest would otherwise suggest. The
Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that
American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In
fact, they are not. Although this book focuses primarily on the
lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect
on American interests, the lobby's impact has been
unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's
settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as
Leon Wieseltier recently called a "moral and strategic blunder
of historic proportions."
Israel's situation would be better today if the United States
had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to
convince Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank
and Gaza, and instead helped Israel create a viable Palestinian
state on those lands. Washington did not do so, however, largely
because it would have been politically costly for any president
to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have been much
better off if the United States had told it that its military
strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail,
rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making
it difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize
Israel's conduct and press it to change some of its
counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be jeopardizing
the long-term prospects of the Jewish state.
The Lobby's Modus Operandi
It is difficult to talk about the lobby's influence on American
foreign policy, at least in the mainstream media in the United
States, without being accused of anti-Semitism or labeled a
self-hating Jew. It is just as difficult to criticize Israeli
policies or question U.S. support for Israel in polite company.
America's generous and unconditional support for Israel is
rarely questioned, because groups in the lobby use their power
to make sure that public discourse echoes its strategic and
moral arguments for the special relationship. The response to
former President Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
perfectly illustrates this phenomenon.
Carter's book is a personal plea for renewed American engagement
in the peace process, based largely on his considerable
experience with these issues over the past three decades.
Reasonable people may challenge his evidence or disagree with
his conclusions, but his ultimate goal is peace between these
two peoples, and Carter unambiguously defends Israel's right to
live in peace and security. Yet because he suggests that
Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South
Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel
groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make
peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear
campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of
being an anti-Semite and a "Jew-hater," some critics even
charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis. Since the lobby
seeks to keep the present relationship intact, and because in
fact its strategic and moral arguments are so weak, it has
little choice but to try to stifle or marginalize serious
discussion.
Yet despite the lobby's efforts, a considerable number of
Americans -- almost 40 percent -- recognize that U.S. support
for Israel is one of the main causes of anti-Americanism around
the world. Among elites, the number is substantially higher.
Furthermore, a surprising number of Americans understand that
the lobby has a significant, not always positive influence on
U.S. foreign policy. In a national poll taken in October 2006,
39 percent of the respondents said that they believe that the
"work of the Israeli lobby on Congress and the Bush
administration has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq
and now confronting Iran." In a 2006 survey of international
relations scholars in the United States, 66 percent of the
respondents said that they agreed with the statement "the Israel
lobby has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy." While
the American people are generally sympathetic to Israel, many of
them are critical of particular Israeli policies and would be
willing to withhold American aid if Israel's actions are seen to
be contrary to U.S. interests.
Of course, the American public would be even more aware of the
lobby's influence and more tough-minded with regard to Israel
and its special relationship with the United States if there
were a more open discussion of these matters. Still, one might
wonder why, given the public's views about the lobby and Israel,
politicians and policy makers are so unwilling to criticize
Israel and to make aid to Israel conditional on whether its
actions benefit the United States. The American people are
certainly not demanding that their politicians support Israel
down the line. In essence, there is a distinct gulf between how
the broader public thinks about Israel and its relationship with
the United States and how governing elites in Washington conduct
American policy.
The main reason for this gap is the lobby's formidable
reputation inside the Beltway. Not only does it exert
significant influence over the policy process in Democratic and
Republican administrations alike, but it is even more powerful
on Capitol Hill. The journalist Michael Massing reports that a
congressional staffer sympathetic to Israel told him, "We can
count on well over half the House -- 250 to 300 members -- to do
reflexively whatever AIPAC wants." Similarly, Steven Rosen, the
former AIPAC official who has been indicted for allegedly
passing classified government documents to Israel, illustrated
AIPAC's power for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a
napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we
could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."
These are not idle boasts. As will become clear, when issues
relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always
votes to endorse the lobby's positions, and usually in
overwhelming numbers.
Why Is it so Hard to Talk About the Israel Lobby?
Because the United States is a pluralist democracy where freedom
of speech and association are guaranteed, it was inevitable that
interest groups would come to dominate the political process.
For a nation of immigrants, it was equally inevitable that some
of these interest groups would form along ethnic lines and that
they would try to influence U.S. foreign policy in various ways.
Cuban Americans have lobbied to maintain the embargo on Castro's
regime, Armenian Americans have pushed Washington to acknowledge
the 1915 genocide and, more recently, to limit U.S. relations
with Azerbaijan, and Indian Americans have rallied to support
the recent security treaty and nuclear cooperation agreements.
Such activities have been a central feature of American
political life since the founding of the country, and pointing
them out is rarely controversial.
Yet it is clearly more difficult for Americans to talk openly
about the Israel lobby. Part of the reason is the lobby itself,
which is both eager to advertise its clout and quick to
challenge anyone who suggests that its influence is too great or
might be detrimental to U.S. interests. There are, however,
other reasons why it is harder to have a candid discussion about
the impact of the Israel lobby.
To begin with, questioning the practices and ramifications of
the Israel lobby may appear to some to be tantamount to
questioning the legitimacy of Israel itself. Because some states
still refuse to recognize Israel and some critics of Israel and
the lobby do question its legitimacy, many of its supporters may
see even well-intentioned criticism as an implicit challenge to
Israel's existence. Given the strong feelings that many people
have for Israel, and especially its important role as a safe
haven for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust and as a central
focus of contemporary Jewish identity, there is bound to be a
hostile and defensive reaction when people think its legitimacy
or its existence is under attack.
But in fact, an examination of Israel's policies and the efforts
of its American supporters does not imply an anti-Israel bias,
just as an examination of the political activities of the
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) does not imply
bias against older citizens. We are not challenging Israel's
right to exist or questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish
state. There are those who maintain that Israel should never
have been created, or who want to see Israel transformed from a
Jewish state into a bi-national democracy. We do not. On the
contrary, we believe the history of the Jewish people and the
norm of national self-determination provide ample justification
for a Jewish state. We think the United States should stand
willing to come to Israel's assistance if its survival were in
jeopardy. And though our primary focus is on the Israel lobby's
negative impact on U.S. foreign policy, we are also convinced
that its influence has become harmful to Israel as well. In our
view, both effects are regrettable.
In addition, the claim that an interest group whose ranks are
mostly Jewish has a powerful, not to mention negative, influence
on U.S. foreign policy is sure to make some Americans deeply
uncomfortable -- and possibly fearful and angry -- because it
sounds like a charge lifted from the notorious Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, that well-known anti-Semitic forgery that
purported to reveal an all-powerful Jewish cabal exercising
secret control over the world.
Any discussion of Jewish political power takes place in the
shadow of two thousand years of history, especially the
centuries of very real anti-Semitism in Europe. Christians
massacred thousands of Jews during the Crusades, expelled them
en masse from Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and other places
between 1290 and 1497, and confined them to ghettos in other
parts of Europe. Jews were violently oppressed during the
Spanish Inquisition, murderous pogroms took place in Eastern
Europe and Russia on numerous occasions, and other forms of
anti-Semitic bigotry were wide spread until recently. This
shameful record culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, which killed
nearly six million Jews. Jews were also oppressed in parts of
the Arab world, though much less severely.
Given this long history of persecution, American Jews are
understandably sensitive to any argument that sounds like
someone is blaming them for policies gone awry. This sensitivity
is compounded by the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of
the sort laid out in the Protocols. Dire warnings of secretive
"Jewish influence" remain a staple of neo-Nazis and other
extremists, such as the hate-mongering former Ku Klux Klan
leader David Duke, which reinforces Jewish concerns even more.
A key element of such anti-Semitic accusations is the claim that
Jews exercise illegitimate influence by "controlling" banks, the
media, and other key institutions. Thus, if someone says that
press coverage in the United States tends to favor Israel over
its opponents, this may sound to some like the old canard that
"Jews control the media." Similarly, if someone points out that
American Jews have a rich tradition of giving money to both
philanthropic and political causes, it sounds like they are
suggesting that "Jewish money" is buying political influence in
an underhanded or conspiratorial way. Of course, anyone who
gives money to a political campaign does so in order to advance
some political cause, and virtually all interest groups hope to
mold public opinion and are interested in getting favorable
media coverage.
Evaluating the role of any interest group's campaign
contributions, lobbying efforts, and other political activities
ought to be a fairly uncontroversial exercise, but given past
anti-Semitism, one can understand why it is easier to talk about
these matters when discussing the impact of the pharmaceutical
lobby, labor unions, arms manufacturers, Indian-American groups,
etc., rather than the Israel lobby. Making this discussion of
pro-Israel groups and individuals in the United States even more
difficult is the age-old charge of "dual loyalty." According to
this old canard, Jews in the diaspora were perpetual aliens who
could never assimilate and be good patriots, because they were
more loyal to each other than to the country in which they
lived. The fear today is that Jews who support Israel will be
seen as disloyal Americans. As Hyman Bookbinder, the former
Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee, once
commented, "Jews react viscerally to the suggestion that there
is something unpatriotic" about their support for Israel.
Let us be clear: we categorically reject all of these
anti-Semitic claims. In our view, it is perfectly legitimate for
any American to have a significant attachment to a foreign
country. Indeed, Americans are permitted to hold dual
citizenship and to serve in foreign armies, unless, of course,
the other country is at war with the United States. As noted
above, there are numerous examples of ethnic groups in America
working hard to persuade the U.S. government, as well as their
fellow citizens, to support the foreign country for which they
feel a powerful bond. Foreign governments are usually aware of
the activities of sympathetic ethnically based interest groups,
and they have naturally sought to use them to influence the U.S.
government and advance their own foreign policy goals. Jewish
Americans are no different from their fellow citizens in this
regard.
The Israel lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy or anything of the
sort. It is engaged in good old-fashioned interest group
politics, which is as American as apple pie. Pro-Israel groups
in the United States are engaged in the same enterprise as other
interest groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and
the AARP, or professional associations like the American
Petroleum Institute, all of which also work hard to influence
congressional legislation and presidential priorities, and
which, for the most part, operate in the open.
With a few exceptions, to be discussed in subsequent chapters,
the lobby's actions are thoroughly American and legitimate.
We do not believe the lobby is all-powerful, or that it controls
important institutions in the United States. As we will discuss
in several subsequent chapters, there are a number of cases
where the lobby did not get its way. Nevertheless, there is an
abundance of evidence that the lobby wields impressive
influence. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of
the most important pro-Israel groups, used to brag about its own
power on its website, not only by listing its impressive
achievements but also by displaying quotations from prominent
politicians that attested to its ability to influence events in
ways that benefit Israel. For example, its website used to
include a statement from former House Minority Leader Richard
Gephardt telling an AIPAC gathering, "Without your constant
support ... and all your fighting on a daily basis to strengthen
[the U.S.-Israeli relationship], it would not be." Even the out
spoken Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who is often quick
to brand Israel's critics as anti-Semites, wrote in a memoir
that "my generation of Jews...became part of what is perhaps the
most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of
democracy. We did a truly great job, as far as we allowed
ourselves, and were allowed, to go."
J. J. Goldberg, the editor of the Jewish weekly newspaper the
Forward and the author of Jewish Power: Inside the American
Jewish Establishment, nicely captures the difficulty of talking
about the lobby: "It seems as though we're forced to choose
between Jews holding vast and pernicious control or Jewish
influence being nonexistent." In fact, he notes, "somewhere in
the middle is a reality that none wants to discuss, which is
that there is an entity called the Jewish community made up of a
group of organizations and public figures that's part of the
political rough-and-tumble. There's nothing wrong with playing
the game like everybody else." We agree completely. But we think
it is fair and indeed necessary to examine the consequences that
this "rough-and-tumble" interest group politics can have on
America and the world.
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