> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jewsrock.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Anti-Semitism claims the Rolling Stones - URL: https://www.jewsrock.org/anti-semitism-claims-the-rolling-stones/ - Published: 2005-09-20T12:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T22:08:39.000Z - Author: JewsRock - Tags: Blog *by Spencer Ackerman* By now, you've surely read about the anti-Bush jeremiad on the Rolling Stones' forthcoming album [A Bigger Bang.](http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/336079p-287048c.html?ref=jewsrock.org) My first thought was dread. Most rock against Bush has been the domain of one-dimensional frauds like [Conor Oberst](http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002095.html?ref=jewsrock.org), with the gigantic exception being Sleater Kinney (jewish). Whatever happened to subtlety, or a deft acknowledgement of the improbable circumstances of pampered rock-and-rollers moaning about disenfranchisement? You know, like in "Street Fighting Man," by… well, the Rolling Stones. Then my thoughts turned to horror. This is the Rolling Stones. The post-Some Girls Rolling Stones. The post-Bill Wyman Rolling Stones. The post-Luciana Morad Rolling Stones. The only Stones we have left. Jesus. But then it got even worse. The anti-Bush track in question, as you've no doubt heard, is titled "Neo-Con." I also know that you, like me, grabbed a baseball bat to protect your sister from the forthcoming onslaught of pillaging Cossacks. For the word "neo-con" is nothing more than an anti-Semite's euphemism for "Jew." After all, there's an entire cottage industry on the right devoted to throwing the term down the memory hole. In January 2004, David Brooks wrote an [infamous New York Times column](http://www.justinlogan.com/justinlogancom/2004/01/neocon%5Fas%5Fcodew.html?ref=jewsrock.org) putting "neoconservative" in scare quotes, suggesting that a [self-identified intellectual strain](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0028740211/qid=1123771554/sr=1-1/ref=sr%5F1%5F1/104-1302712-3571116?v=glance&s=books&ref=jewsrock.org)was just a figment of fevered imaginations, before arguing that so-called neoconservatives barely even know one another. He then delivered the coup de grace: in the minds of Bush's enemies, he wrote, "con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish'." Any love affair liberals had with David Brooks--the urbane, intellectually honest conservative--ended with that essay. Brooks was hardly alone. My TNR colleague Lawrence Kaplan accused practically everyone opposed to the Iraq war ("a chorus of voices from the left, right and center") of anti-Semitism in a pre-invasion [Washington Post op-ed](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A23009-2003Feb17%C2%ACFound=true&ref=jewsrock.org). But Lawrence's piece was mostly read by the political class, for whom this sort of toxic partisan combat is basically to be expected. Brooks, by contrast, made the mistake of mainlining the antiwar-ipso-facto-anti-Semite canard into the bloodstream of Blue America, and the uproar was so furious he released a simpering statement claiming it was all just a joke that went awry. But it's been awhile. In the interim, the war has gone from disaster to [hopeless nightmare](http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050214&s=ackerman021405&ref=jewsrock.org). The neocons are backed into a corner--and the Stones have just called them out. (Well, called out Bush, and, apparently, Condi.) One counterthrust could be to pan the song as a stinker, as the past 25 years of the Stones' catalogue suggests it will be. But I doubt that's how it'll play out. Who's going to be the first neo to call Mick Jagger a Jew-hater? My bet is John Podhoretz.