Is there any more ridiculous non sequitur in this little Katherine Harris flare-up than her defensive affirmation of her avowed support of Israel?  Here is a sample from The Palm Beach Post:

Harris, of Longboat Key near Sarasota, said she has a strong record of supporting Israel.

“When I speak in temples, I say, ‘Please, I am so passionate about Israel, make certain that you are engaged and involved in the process, because otherwise you’re going to have people voting that are not going to be supportive of it.’ I have always said in my speeches in churches I stand with Israel.”

Harris has sponsored and supported numerous congressional resolutions commending Israel and condemning the attacks by Hezbollah. She also co-sponsored a resolution honoring Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

If she is trying to respond to the criticism that she “excluded” or denigrated non-Christians, what difference does her supporting Israel really make?  If she really is denigrating non-Christians, she would be saying, “Yes, I think Jewish legislators would necessarily pass sinful laws, but I support Israel, so just overlook that other stuff.”  If she isn’t denigrating anyone (and it is frankly difficult to read anything denigrating or truly exclusionary into her remarks), it is merely gutless pandering to even mention Israel.  A third, principled option was open to her: explain and defend the views you actually hold, if you hold them with any seriousness, rather than abandoning them in embarrassment and seeking rhetorical cover under the two biggest political shelters in America: being pro-Israel and caring about the Holocaust.  Under no circumstances make pointless rhetorical concessions by saying things like, “I believe that people of all faiths–or none at all–should participate in government! I’m a nice person!  Don’t hate me!”  In fact, this is what she did say:

“My rallying cry,” she said, “has always been people of all faiths should be involved.”

Okay, fine–now where is the outrage that she is clearly trying to exclude atheists, Jains and Buddhists who do not rely on faith?  Perhaps for her next trick she will assure everyone that she doesn’t want to exclude Buddhists–she supports Tibet!  Once you begin making these sorts of lame concessions you will never be free of making more in the future.    

Can you imagine any other foreign policy position that someone would invoke randomly when accused of prejudice or exclusionary rhetoric?  Is it even conceivable that any other foreign policy topic would come up in the context of a specifically domestic cultural debate during a Senate election?  Suppose it were the other way around: “I’m not anti-Christian.  I support Polish membership in NATO!”  Um, okay. 

Imagine Barack Obama saying that Democrats need to elect “progressive Christians” to “prevent injustice” (much less provocative than allowing the “legislation of sin”!) and then defending himself against an accusation of prejudice (against, let’s say, Wiccans) by saying, “I support strong ties with Kenya!”  Not only would it be just as completely irrelevant, but no one would even suppose that it had any bearing on the question at hand. 

But Ms. Harris thinks, not implausibly, that waving around her support of Israel and trotting out her grandson-of-Holocaust-survivors campaign manager will help stop her campaign’s bad press.  At first glance it makes no sense why this kind of response would be appropriate, until you consider the hypnotic, almost talismanic power that affirming support for Israel can have.  If you will not stand by the convictions of your Christian voters, I suppose the next best thing is to pay your respects to Israel and the Holocaust.  It might not save your campaign, but it saves you from the much worse political death that would follow if you did not express firm support.  And with opponents like Peter Monroe, who has already accused her of anti-Semitism (there’s always at least one who will dredge this up), the completely ludicrous and irrelevant declaration of pro-Israel views may be exactly what she needs in our society to stave off more bad press.  She will have a harder time retaining her credibility as a tough, media-resistant champion of those “Judeo-Christian values” that she maintained during the Witness interview was one of her top qualifications for office:

And I have proven that I will not kowtow to the media and all the pressure.  

That seems to have lasted all of three days.  Just imagine how easily she’ll be intimidated once she’s in Washington.