You Shell Me and I Shell You Back

Turkey struck at Syrian targets today in retaliation for Syria shelling a Turkish border town. The Syrian attack killed five civilians.

Honestly, how could Syria have known Turkey would be so barbaric as to fire back at an entity engaging in cross-border shelling? Who do they think they are -- Israelis?

Ethics Before Ethnics

This is an interesting, if banal, sum up of Ohio GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel's utter failure to appeal to the Jewish vote. What it boils down to is that Jews, being liberal, ended up being none-too-keen about voting for Mandel, who is very conservative. Add on to that Mandel's reputation for being a bit of a skeeze on the campaign trail, and, well, why would you expect Jews to vote for him?

The presumed answer, as it always is, is "Mandel is Jewish". But ethnic affinity simply has not been demonstrated to trump ideological affiliation in the voting behavior of minority or other marginal groups. Women didn't flock to Sarah Palin despite their shared possession of breasts. Steve Cohen keeps easily turning back challenges in his majority-minority district because his opponents continue to assume that the only thing they need to do to win is remind voters that they're Black and Cohen is a White Jew.

It just doesn't work that way. If anything, it's White men who have historically displayed more ... reticence at casting a ballot for candidates outside their own group.