Political tidbits: Joe the Plumber takes on the Middle East and Shepard Smith is appalled

• A Jewish senior citizen told “Joe the Plumber” at a campaign appearance Tuesday that the election of Obama would bring “death to Israel” – and Joe agreed. Later, asked by Fox News’ Shepard Smith whether he thinks John McCain agrees with him, Joe said he had no idea and it was his “personal opinion” that he’d come up with by “looking into different facts” – and that people shouldn’t listen to his opinion anyway. Smith is so appalled after the interview that he mutters “it just gets frightening sometimes” and states that Obama “has said and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States.” The Huffington Post has the video. The McCain campaign doesn’t seem nearly as disgusted, saying Joe is offering “penetrating and clear analysis.”
• David Gelernter writes in the Weekly Standard that the best word to describe John McCain is a Hebrew one – tsaddik, “a man of such nobility and moral substance that he approaches holiness.”
• The Huffington Post has the details on a Florida GOP mailer that calls Obama “no friend of Israel.”
• Photos of Obama with leaders of all three of Israel’s major political parties are featured on a mailer the Obama-Biden campaign is sending out in Florida, reports Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times.
• Under the headline “How the GOP Scares Jews,” Slate examines the e-mail the Pennsylvania GOP sent out to Jewish voters suggesting that an Obama win could bring a second Holocaust.
• Michael Freund of the Jerusalem Post is disturbed that Israel’s foes are all rooting for Obama.
• Raphael Sonenshein speculates why recent polls are showing Jewish voters moving to Obama – and says Sarah Palin’s failure to name a single newspaper she reads couldn’t have helped the Republican ticket, in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.
• A liberal pro-choice Jewish woman for McCain explains her reasons, at the American Thinker.
• “From Iran Agression to U.S. Recession: The Challenges Ahead”: Mona Charen, David Horowitz, Cliff May, Daniel Pipes and Michael Medved discuss the campaign’s issues, from a conservative perspective, in a forum sponsored by the Jewish Policy Center.
• Does the voiceover on this McCain ad about Obama and Iran sound “suspiciously Jewish,” Jeffrey Goldberg wonders at The Atlantic.
• Sen. John Cornyn’s campaign manager calls Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) “a nut.” His Democratic opponent Dennis Shulman’s daughter, a Capitol Hill aide, gets it on tape, according to The Hill (Fourth item down).
• John and Cindy McCain photographed with a McCippah.