CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday asked former first lady Laura Bush a truly disgusting question.
In a segment about the George W. Bush Institute's Women's Initiative Fellowship Program and its involvement with a group of Egyptian women, Burnett asked Mrs. Bush if the United States needs to "accept" anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism "when we want to make change" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
ERIN BURNETT, HOST: An Egyptian woman, her name's Samira Ibrahim, and she's done a lot of things, courageous things. She's also been criticized for sending tweets that are anti-Semitic, anti-American. Does the U.S. need to accept that when we want to make change. You have to support people that do those things - financially in term of awards, in terms of all these things - because it pays off in the end? Is that a trade-off we have to make?
Those not watching the video should be advised that when Mrs. Bush answered, there was a bit of a startled laugh when she said "No":
LAURA BUSH: No, I don't think so, not necessarily. But I do think it's really important that we do support women in any way we can in the U.S. And I know American women want to do that. It's easy for us to recruit the mentors, the American women mentors for our class of Egyptian fellows because American women are interested in women around the world. And they want to see women succeed.
Burnett should be advised that tolerating anti-Semitism is never an acceptable trade-off for it leads to awful treatment of Jews.
Maybe she's forgotten what happened during World War II.
She might also ask herself whether she'd ever consider racism directed at minorities here in America acceptable under any Machiavellian circumstances.
One quite imagines she wouldn't.
Yet despite the long history of tragic anti-Semitism on this planet, the end justifies the means when Jews are the victims.
Why might that be?
