THE 1998 CAMPAIGN: THE SENATE; Schumer Fires Counterattack at D'Amato on the Holocaust
Invoking
relatives he had lost in the Holocaust, Representative Charles E.
Schumer yesterday assailed Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato for gathering
Holocaust survivors to attack Mr. Schumer's record on Jewish issues. He
also berated Mr. D'Amato for disparaging him with a Yiddish vulgarism at
a meeting with Jewish leaders earlier this week.
In
the latest indication of the attention that both candidates are paying
to Jewish voters, Mr. Schumer chastised his opponent both for staging
the news conference at a Holocaust memorial on Sunday morning, and then
for insulting him with the Yiddishism. His vehement response comes at a
time when Mr. D'Amato's attacks on Mr. Schumer's Congressional
attendance record have largely dominated the campaign.
''I
lost family in the Holocaust, and my wife lost family in the
Holocaust,'' Mr. Schumer said in grim tones, fairly leaping at the
question at the end of a news conference about gun control. Aides said
Mr. Schumer's great-grandmother and seven of her nine children were
killed by Nazis.
''Yesterday,
Al D'Amato used a cheap slur against me, and then, when asked, lied
about it,'' the Congressman, a Brooklyn Democrat, continued. ''Al
D'Amato and I are meeting in debate Saturday. I challenge you, Al
D'Amato, to say to my face that I am not committed to victims of the
Holocaust. I challenge you at the debate Saturday to use that cheap
slur.''
Mr.
D'Amato at first said he did not recall using the vulgarism, which was
first reported in the latest issue of Jewish Week, dated Oct. 23. ''I
have absolutely no knowledge of ever having made that statement,'' Mr.
D'Amato said. ''I have no knowledge of it. Certainly never in a public
domain.''
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But
a number of participants at the private meeting on Tuesday, including
former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who is Mr. D'Amato's most prominent Jewish
supporter, confirmed that the Republican Senator had in fact called Mr.
Schumer ''a putzhead.'' At the same meeting, they said, Mr. D'Amato
referred to Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, as
''Jerry Waddler,'' a presumed reference to Mr. Nadler's substantial
weight.
Last
night, Mr. D'Amato sent a letter to Mr. Schumer in which he implicitly
admitted using the Yiddishism -- but remained on the attack, asserting
that it was Mr. Schumer who was trying to ''inject religious
differences'' into the race.
Making
no mention of his earlier denials, Mr. D'Amato wrote: ''The Yiddish
word I used to describe you at a private meeting means 'fool.' Again,
you are trying to twist that into a religious slur. And again, I stand
by my remark 100 percent.''
In
''The Joys of Yiddish,'' by Leo Rosten (Simon & Schuster), the word
''putz'' is defined as ''vulgar slang for 'penis,' '' which is used as
''a term of contempt for a fool'' or ''a jerk.'' Mr. Rosten adds a
cautionary note: ''Putz is not to be used lightly or when women or
children are around.''
Yesterday's
exchange was another example of Mr. Schumer's using against Mr.
D'Amato a weapon that the Senator himself had employed in the past under
somewhat different circumstances. The Congressman's injured tone
recalled the way Mr. D'Amato reacted six years ago, almost to the day,
after his Democratic challenger, Robert Abrams, called Mr. D'Amato a
''fascist.'' Mr. D'Amato presented himself as a sympathetic figure under
attack, and forced Mr. Abrams to defend himself against charges of
anti-Italian bias.
Mr.
D'Amato's impolitic description of two of New York City's best-known
Democratic members of Congress was not entirely out of character for the
Senator, who once used a fake Japanese accent to mock Lance Ito, the
Japanese-American judge in the O. J. Simpson murder trial.
But
Mr. D'Amato, a disciplined politician, normally keeps a tight rein on
his public utterances in the middle of a campaign. And some of his
advisers expressed concern last night that his remarks, coupled with
criticism over Mr. D'Amato's Holocaust news conference, could pose a
problem for the Senator.
There
clearly was an element of calculation in Mr. Schumer's attack. Although
he and Mr. Nadler had accused Mr. D'Amato of politicizing the Holocaust
after the Sunday news conference at the Holocaust Memorial Wall across
from the United Nations, Mr. Schumer did not mention his lost relatives
until yesterday.
And
although he used the word ''slur'' to describe Mr. D'Amato's
Yiddishism, and lumped that statement together with the Holocaust
Memorial incident, there was no indication that Mr. D'Amato's derogatory
remark was intended as an attack on Mr. Schumer's ethnicity.
Mr.
D'Amato's use of Holocaust victims to attack a Jewish Congressman was
certainly unusual, and even some of the Senator's supporters said he
might have gone too far. At the D'Amato news conference, Mr. Schumer was
criticized for missing two Congressional votes on Holocaust issues --
one dealing with efforts to recover deposits from Swiss banks and the
other allowing use of the Capitol Rotunda for a commemoration (both
bills passed overwhelmingly). The speakers also assailed Mr. Schumer for
voting against a resolution to use force against Saddam Hussein in the
Persian Gulf.
Schumer
aides said they believed that Mr. D'Amato courted a backlash among
Jewish voters unhappy at seeing the Holocaust injected into a campaign.
It is also possible, though, that Mr. D'Amato only risks alienating
progressive Jewish voters already supporting Mr. Schumer.
Mr.
Schumer's silence on the subject since Sunday reflected division among
his advisers over the risks of raising the issue, and some concern that
focusing on the candidate's ethnicity might not serve him well among
some upstate voters. As it is, the Republican Party has been running
advertisements upstate that portray Democrats from New York City as
sharks, and some Democrats and Jewish leaders have suggested that the
ads were intended to play to ethnic tensions.
''For
all the expressions of innocent intent by the ad's sponsors, there is
no real denying that these sorts of references have a history to them
and it is very sad that the ad continues to run,'' The Jewish Press said
in an editorial last week.
Republicans have flatly denied that suggestion.
In
his ''Dear Chuck'' letter yesterday, Mr. D'Amato, who is Roman
Catholic, sought to blame Mr. Schumer for raising religious differences
in the campaign. ''The first time was when our campaign called you a
Brooklyn liberal, and you tried to twist that into religious code
words,'' he wrote. ''It wasn't.''
In
fact, Mr. Schumer, at repeated news conferences and interviews,
declined to characterize the attacks that way. And Mr. D'Amato's
campaign was unable to provide examples from Mr. Schumer to back up the
Senator's assertion.
Nonetheless,
Robert Bellafiore, the D'Amato campaign spokesman, said Mr. D'Amato
stood by his charge that Mr. Schumer had deliberately misconstrued the
''Brooklyn liberal'' remark as anti-Jewish. ''They were definitely
putting it out, and if they were not putting it out directly, it was
getting put out with their consent,'' Mr. Bellafiore said.
Mr.
D'Amato made the Yiddish reference to Mr. Schumer during a private
breakfast meeting with about 40 Jewish supporters in Manhattan.
According to participants, Mr. D'Amato was describing the difference in
the two lawmakers' response upon learning of possible cuts in aid to New
York.
Mr.
D'Amato said he responded by introducing legislation to try to protect
the city's interests. Using the Yiddish term to describe him, Mr.
D'Amato said Mr. Schumer headed for a news conference instead.
Mr. Koch, the Democratic former Mayor, came to the Republican Senator's defense again yesterday.
''It's
no big deal,'' Mr. Koch said. ''He's in a private meeting, which is off
the record, with friends. And he's responding in part to the fact that
Schumer has called him a liar.''
''That's impeccable Yiddish,'' Mr. Koch added. ''He's right on target.''
As
for making fun of Mr. Nadler's weight, Mr. Koch said: ''It's true! Let
me just say, I'm a friend of Jerry. And I worry about his weight. I
think the Senator is conveying that he is worried, too.''
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