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Editorial

Avoiding Automotive Doom

T

he existential threat to the area's
Big Three automakers is some-
thing that has the potential to
affect every Jewish business and profes-
sional person in this area and further feed
existing patterns of out-migration, espe-
cially among our young adults. The Big
Three collapse simply is unthinkable.
As it relates to the automobile industry,
the ascendancy of the Democrats in the
last election may be a mixed blessing,
however.
In President-elect Barack Obama, the
area has a leader who understands and
sympathizes with the problems of this
part of the country. He will be the first
president to be elected from a northern
urban area since John F. Kennedy.
Since then, it has been a steady succes-
sion of political leaders whose background
was from Sun Belt states: three from Texas,
two from California and one each from
Georgia and Arkansas. (Michigan's Gerald
Ford was not elected to the office). None of
them was especially friendly to the auto-
motive industry.

But Obama's Chicago roots sensitize
him to both the local and national impli-
cations of an automotive breakdown. He
strongly backs a bailout of the Big Three
as quickly as possible because he knows
the alternative would rip holes throughout
the economy.
This does not seem to be the primary
concern of Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi and Congressman Henry Waxman,
however. The two Californians also have
signed on to a bailout but appear to favor
attaching design and environmental
strings to the deal. The concept that gov-
ernment can handle such concerns better
than the industry is dubious at best.
Certainly many of the auto industry's
problems are its own doing: making some
cars consumers don't want to buy, overlap-
ping brands, too many dealerships and
union contracts that are no longer viable.
It has also been whipsawed by oil prices.
But the idea of Waxman, who represents
a part of Los Angeles where domestic cars
are regarded as disgustingly backward,
as chairman of the House Energy and

IN TOTALITARIAN
REGIMES, THE
GOVERNMENT-RUN
NEWS COVERAGE

r

IS FILLED WITH
ANTI AMERICAN
AND ANTI ISRAELI
BIAS.

Commerce Committee
is a matter that should
give pause to anyone
seriously concerned
with the future of the
Big Three.
John Dingell, from
WHILE IN WESTERO\
BUT WITHOUT
Detroit's southwestern
DEMOCRACIES WE
ANY GOVERNMENT
suburbs, has been a
FIND
THAT
THE
CONTROL
OF THE
strong guardian of the
auto industry while
SAME BIAS CAN
MEDIA!
keeping environmen-
POP LP . . .
tal issues in balance.
Waxman, however, is
it 0
far from balanced on
these issues, and his
drive to replace his
fellow Democrat as
chairman of this corn-
mittee can have no
good outcome for the
future of Detroit.
There is hope that
assert himself with his fellow Democrats
the Big Three will get through this crisis
to make sure the bailout proposal doesn't
with, at least, some measure of their inde-
turn into a doomsday scenario for the
pendence intact. But Obama will have to
industry. ❑

Reality Check

Almost Familiar

I

walked into the deli in Palm Beach
Gardens and got that old feeling.
Palm Beach is now the most Jewish
county in America by percentage of popu-
lation and Two Jays is its most popular
deli. Actually there is a chain of them
throughout that part of Florida.
Sherry and I took our seats and were
struck once again by the faces of our fel-
low diners who looked almost familiar. A
few times I had to restrain myself from
waving hello to a stranger. Not that there's
anything wrong with that, but it can be
misconstrued.
We've had the same sort of experience
at Corky and Lenny's in the Cleveland area
and, of course, at Canter's in Los Angeles.
We really should stop going into these
cholesterol palaces, but what can you do?
It's in the DNA, and the experience is a
little like sitting down with friends you
haven't met yet.
My kids used to sing a tune they were
taught at nursery school which started off,
"Wherever you go, there's always someone
Jewish."
They would sing it constantly, some-

times at the most inopportune
times. Such as a grocery store in
Traverse City.
But there is some truth to
it. Several years ago, I was in
Budapest on assignment and
Sherry and I visited a "tradi-
tional" restaurant, atop the hill
on the Buda side of the Danube.
There was the inevitable gypsy
band playing Hungarian music
for the diners.
The leader spotted us, led his
group over to our table and began playing
"Hava Nagila."
I got a laugh out of it, but is also gave
me a chill. Sherry and I are fairly adept
at spotting other Jewish people, but it
was disconcerting that a total stranger on
another continent could pick us out so
easily.
I reached into my pocket for a tip, but
the leader shook his head. "No, no," he
said. "We are friends. Just buy me and the
boys a drink"
I told them to belly up to the bar. Of
course, the drink for the boys cost much

more than my proposed tip.
But, hey, it was a cultural
thing.
Back to Palm Beach,
though. This was, of course,
the center of the 2000 presi-
dential election controversy,
when an estimated 2,000
Jewish retirees, appar-
ently confused by a book-like
punch-card ballot, inexpli-
cably voted for right-wing
third-party candidate Pat

Buchanan.
In addition, when a recount of all the
votes ensued to see, among other things,
if a number of punch-cardballots were
sufficiently punched, the phrase "hanging
chads" entered the political vocabulary.
A recount undertaken by several media
groups indicated that George W. Bush,
despite the hanging-chad controversy,
would have carried the state by a few hun-
dred votes.
But I keep wondering. If thousands
of Jewish voters in Palm Beach weren't
confused by the ballot or if the hanging

chads had bent the other way and Joe
Lieberman had served as vice president
for eight years — could he have been the
Democratic nominee this year?
Might Barack Obama have backed away
from challenging a sitting veep, and espe-
cially one with such a strong Jewish base
in the party? We would surely have been
spared the sight of Lieberman campaign-
ing for John McCain and the series of
events that have threatened his seniority
assignments in the U.S. Senate.
How ironic that such a reversal of
fortune could have taken place in Palm
Beach County, of all places. New York and
California are such solidly Democratic
states that the Jewish vote there is dimin-
ished in importance. But Florida is right
on the knife's edge and the returns from
Palm Beach are vital.
I've also got to report that the scram-
bled eggs with lox and onions was out-
standing at Two Jays.

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .

November 20 2008

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