Tommy Thompson: Making money part of Jewish tradition

[NHPolitico]

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Just like black men should feel complimented that we think they have big penises and Asians should feel complimented that we think they are good at math and know martial arts...

[Gabu]

"you know, i always loved those funny groucho marx joke glasses things, because having a big nose is part of the jewish tradition"

[elcorazon]

tommy thompson:  too stupid to be President... oh wait, I guess no one's too stupid to be President, I forgot about our current oval office resident.

[TheresNoMoney]

Funny stuff.

[Eraserhead]

Hilarious. This gave me a good laugh today. Everything he said was true but it was just said in a profoundly stupid way.

[Kevin]

LOL! When Iheard about this I Rolled on my floor laughing!

[MODU]

hehehe . . . you know, I would probably say something similiar.  Between Jewish and Mormon people, I can't imagine a better connected business community. 

[Gustaf]

It's true of course, but formulated in a very stupid way. And his apology is even worse..."I didn't mean to imply anything about Jews and finances" Huh, then what does "making money is part of Jewish tradition" imply?

[elcorazon]

Heck if it's true.  saying that "making money is part of the Jewish tradition" is no more true than saying that getting snookered drunk every night is part of the Catholic tradition. 

you people are letting him off too easy by implying he just didn't say it well.

And, damn, the guy's speaking at  a Jewish organization.  Shouldn't he at least have some prepared thoughts to avoid making such a ridiculous misstatement?

[Jacobtm]

Biden says Obama is clean-cut, mainstream, articulate and intelligent, and the media blasts him.

Thompson says Jews make money well (which is stastically true, they make far more money than white people on average), and he's in trouble?

Will it soon be inadmissable to say that the swiss make fine watches and chocolates, or that Japan is a rather crowded country?

[Gustaf]

if it's true.  saying that "making money is part of the Jewish tradition" is no more true than saying that getting snookered drunk every night is part of the Catholic tradition. 

you people are letting him off too easy by implying he just didn't say it well.

And, damn, the guy's speaking at  a Jewish organization.  Shouldn't he at least have some prepared thoughts to avoid making such a ridiculous misstatement?

The fact that Jews are good at making money (and a lot of other things too) is largely thanks to a cultural heritage (I beliee mostly because they were restricted to lowly, disdained jobs, like banking back in medieaval times. Something which makes the envy towards Jews later on kind of funny, in a non-comic way). And I say this as someone with Jewish background myself. Of course, phrasing it as "Jews are good at making money" leads the thoughts in, ehm, interesting directions. Jews have had to resort to certain strategies to survive in a harsh environment and that has, partly, included many of them accumulating a lot of wealth. Like every sterotype there are many exceptions of course, but noone can deny that Jewish culture is quite distinct and in many ways admirable. Though personally I'd stress the interest in education rather than money-making which is more of an anti-semitic prejudice.

[Gabu]

Biden says Obama is clean-cut, mainstream, articulate and intelligent, and the media blasts him.

Thompson says Jews make money well (which is stastically true, they make far more money than white people on average), and he's in trouble?

Will it soon be inadmissable to say that the swiss make fine watches and chocolates, or that Japan is a rather crowded country?

The problem with Thompson's statement is that in the past when anti-Semitism was a fact of life, Jews were associated with extreme and unabashed stinginess and utter contempt for things like generosity and goodwill for one's neighbors.  They were seen as hoarding money and caring about little else.

Thompson, of course, was not stating that these things were true, but saying that "making money" is a Jewish tradition (doesn't everyone both hope and need to make money?) brings to mind all of these things that have been said of Jews before.

[SPC]

That seems like a complement, being of Jewish background myself.

[elcorazon]

So if he went up at an NAACP event and commented about how great it is that blacks have such big penises, it'd be ok (assuming of course, it's even arguably true that blacks have penises that are larger than average).

feh.

[??????????]

So, what's "offensive" about the comment?

[MODU]

So if he went up at an NAACP event and commented about how great it is that blacks have such big penises, it'd be ok (assuming of course, it's even arguably true that blacks have penises that are larger than average).

feh.

No, he would compliment them on how they've changed the pace of all the popular US sports (except for Hockey . . . since it's a silly Canadian sport). 

[elcorazon]

Judaism is one of the oldest religions and cultures in the Western world.  To say that making money is an important part of the religion diminishes the importance of Judaism and feeds into negative stereotypes.  I will admit as far as stereotypes go, this one's better than being perceived as lazy or stupid or smelly, but for someone to feed into such a stereotype at an event where they are speaking to a Jewish crowd is just plain stupid.  Jews have been persecuted quite recently in history and to expect that such a comment would go over well is just stupid.

And what's offensive about saying blacks have large penises?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Oy.