Tying Romney to anti-Semitism is absurd

On Tuesday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney returned to Michigan, his native state, to announce that he is running for president. He delivered this earth-shattering news at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, posed between a model of the old Nash Rambler and the new Ford hybrid.

The picture was meant to convey a message of "innovation and transformation," the motto of the Romney campaign. The venue had a local message, too. Romney's father, George, a former Michigan governor, was the automotive executive who (temporarily) saved American Motors with the compact Rambler in the late 1950s.

Today, with Detroit hemorrhaging automotive jobs, Mitt would like to be remembered as his father's son and — because he probably couldn't carry Massachusetts in a presidential election — make Michigan his surrogate home state. And there's nothing that says Michigan more than the Ford Museum, a place every school kid south of Petoskey is dragged through at least once.

But Ford has other associations. Romney was barely done speaking when the National Jewish Democratic Council attacked him for insensitivity. "Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe," the council thundered, and Romney had raised "serious questions" about his fitness to occupy the Oval Office.

The newly announced candidate responded by calling the council's criticism "absurd" — which, of course, it is. Henry Ford has been dead 60 years, and his descendants have spent every day since atoning for the old bigot. There is no known Jewish organization or cause that hasn't benefited from Ford largesse. The family's only villain is William Clay Ford Sr., whose 43-year ownership of the Detroit NFL franchise has done to the Lions what his grandfather wanted to do to Jews.

As for the Ford Museum, it is the most important historical institution in a city not overflowing with culture. It houses Thomas Edison's lab and the chair President Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot. The tone of the place is one of bland, politically correct American self-celebration. If the racial prejudices of its namesake put it beyond the pale, what are the Democrats going to do about the Jefferson Memorial?

If attempting to link Romney with anti-Semitism is a cheap political trick, it is also something worse. Jews have real enemies these days, some of whom insist that a Jewish conspiracy has hijacked U.S. foreign policy on behalf of Israel. This is genuine Ford-ism, and it is found primarily on the "progressive" end of the political spectrum — as the National Jewish Democratic Council knows very well. Crying wolf is always irresponsible, but doing it in the middle of a forest is truly dangerous.