A dispatch from Chicago in the national section of today's New York Times reports that the president of the Polish American Congress, Edward Moskal, "suggested, erroneously, that" an Illinois congressional candidate, Rahm Emanuel, "had dual citizenship with Israel and has served in its armed forces."
If the impression that Mr. Emanuel served in the Israeli armed forces is erroneous, it is certainly widely held. Mr. Emanuel's White House colleague, George Stephanopoulos, told "Nightline,""Rahm had served in the Israeli army." The Jerusalem Post reported in July 1997 after an interview with Mr. Emanuel that, "What has perhaps gained Emanuel the greatest admiration in Jerusalem was his coming to the country during the Gulf War to volunteer at a supply base near Kiryat Shmona. He did menial work at the base, separating tank brakes from jeep brakes from truck brakes. He downplays the trip, saying it was not a sacrifice, merely 'something I wanted to do.'" The Associated Press reported in a 1996 biographical sketch of Mr. Emanuel that "In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, he spent 2 and a half weeks rustproofing brakes for Israeli Army vehicles." And the Washington Post reported in 1992 that "Rahm retained dual citizenship until age 18, when he gave up his Israeli passport, but sometimes thinks 'ambivalently' about moving permanently to Israel. It is now part of his legend that during the Persian Gulf War in early1991, when Iraqi scuds were falling on the country where he spent many a childhood summer, he volunteered for 2 1/2 weeks on an army base near the Lebanese border, rust-proofing brakes for military vehicles."
The New York Times article would have been better if it had included some of this context rather than simply dismissing the claim as erroneous .
Backfire: An article in the business section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Author's Attempt to Promote Book Backfires." Well, if generating a full-length article in the New York Times business section, complete with a photograph and several prominent mentions of the book, constitutes a "backfire" of a book-promotion effort, one wonders what a success would be.