Et tu, David Axelrod?

By Cory Franklin

August 28th, 2026

At the legendary South Loop delicatessen, Manny’s, every stratum of Chicagoan comes to enjoy the delicious corned beef sandwiches. They eat elbow to elbow – blue collar workers, professionals, journalists, cops, figures from the Outfit and notable Democratic politicians (Republican politicians in Chicago have been extinct for many years). Two of the most prominent Democratic VIPs often seen schmoozing and eating together are close friends, Rahm Emanuel and David Axlerod.

Or maybe Cassius and Brutus, the conspirators against Julius Caesar. Although in Rahm and David’s plotting, the treachery is against their fellow Jews. If what’s going on now is any indication, Emanuel and Axelrod are probably exchanging notes over potato latkes on how best to betray Israel.

Last month, Emanuel, the former mayor and now a wannabe presidential candidate, delivered the first volley in the sell-out of Israel,  ‘The days of taxpayers subsidizing Israel militarily, that’s over. No more financial aid… the US should never spill any blood for the state of Israel’s security.”  Dispiriting words from someone who was once an Israel Defense Forces volunteer.  We wouldn’t want to help fund our best, most trustworthy allies in the Middle East in the face of an existential struggle, would we?

Not to be outdone, his friend Axelrod, former chief strategist and adviser to President Barack Obama, opined on CNN about the recent victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary. Axelrod said of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group that gave money to El-Sayed’s opponent in a losing cause, “I think it’s a legitimate question: Should essentially an agent of any foreign government, whether it’s Israel or any other, be able to spend—or is it healthy for them to spend—$30 million in a race like this to influence the outcome of that race.”

So, Axelrod has turned AIPAC into an agent of Israel.  The Islamists could not have said it better. But at least he did preface his remarks by identifying himself as the “son of a Jewish refugee.”  Something to lend a patina of moral virtue as he twisted the knife.

Axelrod deserves a double gold medal for hypocrisy and pandering. First, when he was part of Obama’s White House inner circle, he seemed to have had no reservations about AIPAC.  Obama spoke to AIPAC three times, including once when he was seeking its support over Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and again when he was running for reelection in 2012. (Obama pledged to stand by Israel, words that didn’t travel so well in his second term.)  Axelrod was more than happy to welcome AIPAC when it could serve the Obama campaign goals.

Second, the double standard. While questioning AIPAC, Axelrod has yet to say a word about CAIR, the Islamic lobbying group that helped Al-Sayed over the line in Michigan.  As domestic organizations, neither AIPAC nor CAIR is under any legal obligation to register as a foreign agent, and Axelrod knows that.  However, CAIR has a far more dodgy history in the US than AIPAC does. Federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in American history. CAIR has also been designated a terrorist organization by the UAE, a US ally. All that evidently has never appeared on David Axelrod’s radar.

Why are these two Jewish influencers espousing positions that amount to betraying Israel? Their remarks could have come from the Hamas press office.  Is Israel, the only multi-religious democracy in the Middle East, somehow less virtuous than Hamas, and its Islamist and Iranian sponsors? Do Axelrod and Emanuel actually put stock in the demonstrably false canards of genocide, apartheid and settler colonialism, which are essentially antisemitic propaganda. Do their politics render them morally blind and preclude them from seeing who is America’s true friend in the region?

This seems to be a pathetic attempt of old white men seeking to remain relevant in the Democratic Party, even as the Al-Sayed primary victory in Michigan demonstrates the Party is turning socialist and antisemitic. At least James Carville, a non-Jew, has the decency to call out the dark turn his Democratic Party has taken, at the expense of his own future as a party consultant.

Emanuel still harbors hope of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. If the current polls are to be believed, he is delusional. Right now, his poll numbers range somewhere between the microscopic and subatomic. And this is before taking into account the chances the Democratic Socialist and Islamic wings of the Democratic Party — whose candidates a majority of Jewish voters inexplicably still tend to support at the polls — would nominate a Jewish candidate for president.

As long as we’re talking about Shakespeare, Caesar and the Jews, may as well throw a little New Testament into the story. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”  Axelrod has basically accused American Jews allied with AIPAC of being foreign agents. You don’t get a more antisemitic slur than that. It is a scurrilous charge that the antisemitic wing of the party, as well as the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party, would no doubt nod their heads, smile and concur with.

Meanwhile, Axelrod has received little opprobrium from the mainstream press, an institution increasingly willing and even anxious to praise the undeserving in this situation.

No one would mistake Manny’s Delicatessen for the Curia of Pompey, where Caesar met his end.  But the betrayal of the Jews by Manny’s two-star patrons resembles that of Brutus and Cassius. It is the same story of ruinous personal ambition and treacherous disloyalty.  And the antisemitic slur David Axelrod delivered about AIPAC is “the most unkindest cut of all.”

-30-

Dr. Cory Franklin

Cory Franklin, physician and writer, is a frequent contributor to johnkassnews.com. Director of Medical Intensive Care at Cook County (Illinois) Hospital for 25 years, before retiring he wrote over 80 medical articles, chapters, abstracts, and correspondences in books and professional journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. In 1999, he was awarded the Shubin-Weil Award, one of only fifty people ever honored as a national role model for the practice and teaching of intensive care medicine. 

Since retirement, Dr. Franklin has been a contributor to the Chicago Tribune op-ed page. His work has been published in the New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and excerpted in the New York Review of Books. Internationally, his work has appeared internationally in Spiked, The Guardian and The Jerusalem Post. For nine years he hosted a weekly audio podcast, Rememberingthepassed, which discusses the obituaries of notable people who have died recently. His 2015 book “Cook County ICU: 30 Years Of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases” was a medical history best-seller. In 2024, he co-authored The COVID Diaries: Anatomy of a Contagion As it Happened.

In 1993, he worked as a technical advisor to Harrison Ford and was a role model for the physician character Ford played in the film, The Fugitive.

Comments 31

      1. Axelrod and Emmanuel would do or say anything to push themselves forward…….both are irrelevant……..
        No shame…no courage to speak the truth…..pathetic clowns who don’t realize their time is way in the past…..
        Perfect advisors to Obama and Clinton ….neither shame or ability to speak the truth

      2. Excellent term. Rahm has no chance for POTUS and Jag Bag Prickster is way too short, way too fat and way too fugly. Sorry, but looks count way more in politics than what you stand for. There were exceptions, ie Daleys.

        1. Agreed. Except recent photos of Gov Jag Bag Prickster, suggest otherwise. He may be too short still, but that GLP-1 has definitely made him much less fat. A little subtle help from a plastic surgeon may make him less fugly too. Ah the wonders of modern medicine.

  2. I see Bob Fioretti( now a republican) at Mannys all the time on Saturday mornings. I was logistical officer in the Army Reserves during the Yom Kipper war. I know as a fact that US military assets went directly to Israel, thats because we had a President (Nixon) who was not afraid of the left wingers, or public opinion.

  3. Can anyone be surprised at anyone who sells out in today’s Democrat party. Great letter Dr. Franklin and thank you.

    Deo Vindice to all great Americans, and American writers and editors

  4. Who remember Obama’s infamous words? He wanted to fundamentally change America! Well you’re seeing the change right now. The racial division has never been worse. And the antisemitism has grown exponentially. We must take our country back from these radicals in November.

  5. I would love to put Rahm and David on a live theater in the round stage in the North Shore of Chicagoland and have them wax poetic of all personal accounts of the October 7th massacre and and bloodbath….a litany of gut wrenching horrors….every last detail, and then look Holocaust survivors and families in the eye.

    1. Exactly, and I’d come and read some of the autopsy reports from those brutally and viciously killed. Plus bring some of the parents over from Israel to show pictures of their kids and discuss what its like to live after this hideous crime

  7. Axelrod and Rahm forget – and will suffer – the ultimate irony: the Dems gleefully eat their own. Those that they are pandering to will ultimately throw them off the roof too. Though they’ll plead at the time, “but I am a ‘good Jew,’” they will go thump. So in the end they will lose the power they are clinging to and betray any conscience and principles they once had – double whammy. Fitting end.

    https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19PNeYyk59/?mibextid=wwXIfr

  8. Spot on and well written Doc. The rise of blatant anti-Israel sentiment and just plain antisemitism in this country, even as victims of the holocaust still live is incomprehensible. Any politician that caters to it is a disgrace.

  9. Is it just amazing that the party who constantly calls President Trump and his followers fascist has now become the antisemitic party? That was a perfect quote from the New Testament. It seems the Democratic Party has lost its soul.

  11. You know it’s the political circus time when vermin like Axelrod slide out from under their rock to engage in slimy smear tactics he perfected in Chicago politics. His cheap shots and convoluted rhetoric is the epitome of political obfuscation. Divide & conquer tiny dancer!
    A political mercenary with no weapons other than hits below the belt.

  12. Again a bit of great observation. The divider in chief sits back and gleefully watches his handiwork destroy the fabric of America. The likes of Pritzger and Emmanuel will have the money to pay the Jizra and lead pretty much the same privileged life they do now. The rest of us. Not so much. Thanks Dr Franklin. !

  13. Excellent Doc.

    Sad they forgot the slaughter on Oct 7th, and the attacks on Jewish kids for making the mistake of going to a college campus on American soil.

  15. Dr Franklin your analogy comparing Rahm and Axelrod to Cassius and Brutus is excellent. I am of Irish Catholic ancestry and at a loss to understand how they could sever their ties with Israel for some temporary political gain. It would like me denying the existence of the Pope.

  17. Laquan McDonald is Rahm’s Chappaquiddick moment. Just as Ted Kennedy’s presidential hopes were forever wiped out by Chappaquiddick so too are Rahm’s by Laquan McDonald. At least Teddy realized this, where as Rahm is still delusional to think otherwise.

    What is best for the US should always come before what is best for another country – including Israel. That said though it is hard to reconcile Democratic Party foreign policy demonizing the only democratic state in the middle east.

    Growing up Jewish in NYC I sensed that many Jews – such as my Mom (rest her soul) – had for some reason free floating guilt. And many others were quietly self loathing. A variation of the Stockholm syndrome? Maybe. I do know that historically Jews are sympathetic to those on the Left (that’s an understatement) and those on the Left were more than willing to send them to oblivion when the time came. It’s no different today.

      1. Nambi. Yes. The psychopathology is beyond my understanding. Exit polls – regardless of their faults – suggest as many of 30% of Jewish voters, voted for Mayor Mamdani. You can’t get more pathological than that.

  18. I remember ‘ Comber-Over Dave’ from his work with Richie Daley – Richard Ist. He systematically eliminated every person who helped RMD from cradke to grave – Pat Huels, Tim Degnan, Terry Teele & etc. The guy is a total Marxist louse.

  20. They’ve somehow managed to mingle Judaism, Zionism, AIPAC, and Benjamin Netanyahu. So any criticism of Netanyahu or what they are doing in Gaza, or Judea and Samaria, or AIPAC is antisemitic.

    This is very a very skillful management of narratives. It is propaganda that ranks on a level with the Dem and Rep parties, and would make Goebbels proud.

    JFK was in support of having AIPAC register as a foreign lobbying group. He said that the indigenous people of Palestine should be considered. He said that Jerusalem should be an international city governed by the UN so everyone could pray there.

    The Epstein class knows where its bread is buttered. Epstein himself supplied much blackmail info on officials in order to facilitate fraud and violence of epic proportions.

    You don’t have to worry about losing your soul when you don’t6 have one. I think we’ve lost our collective soul a long time ago when we failed to think critically and think for ourselves.

    We need to be told what to think by “experts” who are paid handsomely by one lobby or the other.

    1. Approx 1000 Israelis were murdered by Hamas on October 7th. Israel has a population of around 10 million. So that’s 0.01% of the population wiped out in one day. Apply those numbers to the US with a population of approximately 340 million. That comes out to 34,000. What do you think the US response would be under those circumstances? Well judging from 9/11 we already know. And it’s the Chicago Way: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.” And that was once the American way too going back to WWII. You are delusional if you think otherwise. Hamas is getting exactly what they deserve … in spades. So get off your self-righteous sanctimonious high horse making inane holier than thou pronouncements to a country literally under existential threat for most of its existence.

  21. I’m gonna quote Kass’ daddy. “When the politician speaks, the donkey breaks wind. Folks, the lobbyists run this GD place. They run our health care, food, military, all of it.

    AIPAC is but one. They are all frauds and all are bankrupting us by buying our politicians and judges and carrying them around in their pockets like so many nickels and dimes.

    They even own our religious leaders. The junkets and legalized bribery are not only of our Congress. The uniparty has their hand out and pockets full of lobbyist cash.

  22. Thanks for this excellent column Dr Franklin. Catholics can certainly understand the shame of betrayal, watching 2-faced Pelosi spew hatred for pro-life voters while financing Planned Parenthood. She pretended to be Catholic, and media glamorized her hypocrisy.

    It was the same with fake Catholic Biden. Mass with the bishop on Sunday, followed by transgender males stealing trophies (and scholarships) from high school girls.

    Of course Rahm and Axelrod are not alone in deceiving Jewish voters.
    Perennial candidate Dan Bliss has family in Israel. That didn’t stop him from choosing a socialist running mate in 2017 who hates Zionism and demands boycotts of Israel. As Mayor of Evanston, he allowed anti-Semitic thugs to run amuck in anti-Israel hate groups.

    “Fancy Dan” Biss – like Pritzker – insists anti-Semitism is controlled by MAGA , and therefore he washes his hands of the violence we see every day.
    He’ll do anything for a better-paying job, and hopes to loaf around Congress for 28 years like his mentor Jan Schakowsky.

    Old Shack duped north shore voters with tales of her Jewish immigrant parents. But since 2015, she’s been a puppet to the pro-Iran, pro-Hamas socialist faction of her party.

  23. Great column, John ~ when you’re back, you’re always great, the best. Always happy to read your contributor’s columns as well. I’m late to the table today, we took our grandson out for breakfast. Another stroke! Hope your updated meds will stop this from happening again, sending prayers your way as always. God Bless! O Theos Mazi Sou!

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