Oh, Cut the Crap, Simon Wiesenthal Center!

There is a great deal of anti-Semitism in the world. And then there's the cover of the Washington City Paper, which features a photograph of Washington Redskins' owner Daniel Snyder (who is, in my city, widely understood to be an egregious putz) on which devil's horns and an comic-book evil-dude mustache are drawn. It's pretty funny, and it accompanies a great article by the sportswriter Dave McKenna on Snyder's too-numerous-to-count failings as an owner.

Snyder, unable to bear an attack by the mighty Washington City Paper, has decided to sue, and even more stupidly, he has enlisted the Simon Wiesenthal Center in his campaign. The Wiesenthal Center, unbelievably, is now accusing the CIty Paper of trafficking in Nazi imagery! Tablet's Marc Tracy reports that the Center is demanding that the City Paper "apologize for the image,  which, it accused, is 'associated with virulent anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages, deployed by the genocidal Nazi regime, by Soviet propagandists, and even in 2011 by those who still seek to demonize Jews.'" Tracy goes on to write, "So, to be clear: WCP at most implicitly trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes--a breathtakingly dumb allegation, but that is the Center's allegation; the Center, by contrast, explicitly--not allegedly, but indisputably--associated a small alternative newspaper with 'the genocidal Nazi regime.' Nice."

This is almost unbearably stupid. The image isn't anti-Semtiic, at least not to anyone who has ever gone to grade school and/or has scrawled on a magazine. Why the Wiesenthal Center would take on the ridiculous Daniel Snyder as a client is unfathomable. Unless it's not. So far, at least, his name does not appear on the Wiesenthal's board of directors.