Leslie Cockburn, journalist turned congressional frontrunner, is leading the race for the seat in Virginia’s 5th District, running on the Democratic ticket against Republican Denver Riggleman. Although the district has prevailed as a Republican one for 16 of the past 18 years, Cockburn is poised to take it back with the upcoming election result.
Yet Cockburn’s political affiliation isn’t the issue with her campaign. Rather it’s her hatred for the state of Israel and her anti-Semitic tendencies — displaying her genuine temperament, as someone with vile views that run counter to American democratic values.
In 1991, Cockburn co-authored a book over 400 pages long with her husband, Andrew Cockburn, called Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. The book’s contents are heavily conspiratorial, making outlandish claims against the Jewish Diaspora, Israeli democracy, and the United States — likely the most egregious given that only two-and-a-half decades later, she is campaigning to be a part of the “colluding machine” that is the United States government.
In the book, Cockburn claims that Israel perpetrated the Gulf War, in addition to clandestinely collaborating with a Colombian drug cartel, and working with South Africa on nuclear missiles, to name a few of the absurdities presented as fact. The book makes reference throughout to Israel as having a significant amount of the world’s nations in the palm of their hand, perpetuating the age-old anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews run the world.
And for those who claim that Cockburn does not harbor any such anti-Semitic, anti-democratic views — because that’s what her campaign and much of the leftist media say — consider this: Who, besides a hate-monger, devotes themselves to upward of 400 pages of pseudo-research in a yearslong endeavor to slander Jews, Israel, and the United States?
Cockburn’s infatuation with condemning Israel and its allies is truly obscene. It makes her potential election to Congress a daunting prospect for the American community of Jews, over whom she will exercise sizable influence.
Further, Cockburn has enjoyed tea (of her own free will) with the murderous sons of Saddam Hussein, who were both later killed in a United States raid. Obviously, this isn’t to say that Cockburn espouses their views, but her accommodation of the Husseins is rather shocking. I, for one, would expect our congressional representatives to turn their backs on such people, even before they get aspirations to run for political office, out of sheer patriotism and understanding of what these men had done to harm civilians in their home country.
Cockburn is a bigot, plain and simple, for her espousal of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American conspiracy theories, plus the unseemly respect she freely paid mass murderers.
I worry whether the mounting evidence against her character isn’t sufficient for voters to deem her unqualified to represent them in one of the most crucial positions in American democracy. And I worry even more that in nominating her and supporting her candidacy, Democrats have turned a blind eye to gaping character flaws within their own party, sacrificing morality for bigotry as they grow enthralled by the possibility of taking back Congress from Republicans.
Noah Phillips writes on Jewish and Israeli affairs. Follow him on Twitter @noahaphilli.
