Be advised that our media finds it very significant indeed that all 23 “no” votes came from Republicans.

So far FOURTEEN House Republicans have voted against a bill condemning Anti-Semitism, Anti-Muslim and Other Hatred. Wow. This is going to be hard to explain.

— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) March 7, 2019

House Democrats have been under pressure for a week on anti-semitism but House Republicans have bailed them out.

No 3 house r Liz Cheney, Lee zeldin and Louie Gohmert vote no. Jeff Duncan present.

An embarrassing moment for house gop.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 7, 2019

Sherman later clarified that he’s going by what Republican leaders told him, that they wanted members to check the box by voting yes rather than to vote no in protest precisely in order to avoid disingenuous “Republicans oppose anti-hate measure!” headlines. That would have been the prudent play for the entire caucus.

But can you blame a few dozen for not wanting to endorse a sham that did more to legitimize Ilhan Omar’s dual-loyalty comments by omission than it did to condemn them? Nah. The whole point of the last 48 hours was that Democrats refused to denounce anti-semitism squarely, specifically when aimed at supporters of the Jewish state. Even some of their own members are appalled by it. They barfed up a watered-down resolution and a few Republicans decided to signal their contempt for Pelosi’s capitulation by voting no. Simple as that.

Congrats to literally everyone on winning this version of the Victim Olympiad, though. All -isms matter!

The resolution released earlier today mentioned several groups including African Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants

But as @dnewhauser pointed out earlier, Latinos not mentioned despite @AOC raising specific concerns about that earlier this wk

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) March 7, 2019

The list of Republican “no” votes included Lee Zeldin, one of two Jewish GOPers in the House:

23 House Republicans voted against the anti-hate resolution:

Biggs
Brooks (AL)
Buck
Budd
Burgess
Cheney
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Crawford
Duncan
Gohmert
Gosar 
Graves (GA)
King (NY)
LaMalfa
Massie
Palazzo
Rogers (AL)
Roy
Steube
Walker
Yoho
Zeldin 

Rep. Steve King voted present.

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 7, 2019

I’d bet good money that Ted Deutch and some of the Jewish Democrats who initially called for a resolution condemning Omar’s dual-loyalty comments also wanted to vote no in protest but knew that Pelosi would never forgive them for prolonging the party’s political agony, especially with the media primed to trumpet that the only no votes came from the hated racist GOP. Deutch et al. took one for the team. But that’s okay. They know Omar will mouth off again eventually. And when she does, Jewish Democrats will remind Pelosi that they were good soldiers this time.

The ADL also wussed out today, by the way:

ADL statement on House vote on #antiSemitism resolution: https://t.co/mNcqCreBQ5 pic.twitter.com/goUsTDsdd0

— ADL (@ADL) March 7, 2019

It’s technically true that Pelosi acknowledged Omar’s comments were anti-semitic but she personally absolved her of blame by treating her like a developmentally disabled child who didn’t know what she was saying and the party informally absolved her of blame by drafting this meaningless “bad things are bad” resolution. It’s perverse that a watchdog is congratulating Democrats at a moment when the left just succeeded in moving the Overton window a bit towards mainstreaming anti-semitism.

Anyway, a few more choice Jew-baiting soundbites by Omar and Pelosi’s going to have to stop appearing on magazine covers with her.

Update: Ken White asks a fair question: The resolution could have been worse, no? It did, after all, identify the specific problem with what Omar said, the dual-loyalty accusation. It didn’t identify Omar herself.

I agree, it could have been worse (e.g., “all hate matters, the end”). The fact that it identified the particular stereotype she used was welcome, and no doubt a concession to her critics in the caucus. But the resolution evolved within the wider context of Omar’s allies in the caucus running interference for her, even claiming that she was the real victim in this. Many of her allies, starting with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, refused to concede that accusing supporters of the Jewish state of foreign allegiance was necessarily problematic, to borrow a favorite word of the left. And of course, considering that initially punishments were discussed ranging from identifying Omar by name in the resolution to stripping her of her Foreign Affairs seat, in context the watered-down resolution feels more like a ploy to shield her from blame than to reprimand her. That’s why the ADL statement feels so feeble. Have they been watching this process at all the last few days?

Update: Omar doesn’t sound like she feels rebuked.

Our nation is having a difficult conversation, but we believe this is great progress. pic.twitter.com/gSua9a8mki

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) March 7, 2019