I haven't read your entire response and will do so at leisure later.
But my thumbnail analysis in this small study of two leading newspapers is this:
Washington Post, owner Graham family, Protestant, supported the Iraq War
NY Times, owner Sulzberger family, Jewish, opposed Iraq War
As to Tom Freidman it looks like his ultimate position was contra Iraq War for unilateralism and Bush failure to build a coalition. If you have a link to that I'd appreciate it so that I can read in its entirety. Thanks
If you want some Jews vociferously against the Iraq War I can supply many names starting with Paul Krugman of NYT.
Do you do a religion/ehtnicity analysis on all issues? I find that the probelm is that many people pre-suppose Jewish dual loyalty, and then move from there to finding proof for their supposition.
Ironically the opposite side of this debate are the many conservatives who can not for the life of them understand why the majority of Jews vote Democrat when the Republicans support Israel more.
The answer to both sides is really quite simple. Jews are no more monolithic than any other American religious/ethnic subdivision.
Actually, I prefer not to cut it this thin. Ownership is not everything. And editorial sentiment is, as you know, is developed by consensus. Sure, the publisher has the last word, if he wants, but he does not live in an intellectual vacuum. For the record, The WP was bought by Katherine Meyers Graham's father and came to the Graham family through marriage. I believe that the Meyers family is Jewish.
Do you do a religion/ehtnicity analysis on all issues?
Pretty much, yes. Actually, I usually think of it more in terms of "culture" but these things track pretty much together.
I am obsessed with the French. One reason is that you can make a lot of very valid generalizations about them. Seeing the possibility of a different way of being, illuminates one's own style in a way that is otherwise often invisible.
A generalization that I love about the French (fist pondered after reading Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon) is that they are amazingly committed to "theory." This at first sounded to me like a ridiculous abstraction but the more you watch them the more you see this, even in their way of speaking such as their self-conscious references to "the French social model." I am thinking about this because last night I happened across a quip in which a French diplomat is claimed to have said about military action in Kosovo, "Well, it seems to be working on the ground but will it work ~in~ ~theory~?" This is so ridiculous and so French. It is why they are only now distancing themselves from the Stalinist dreams -- they were so entranced by Marxist ~theory~ that they just could not see tens of millions of mass murder victims. My point here is that a lot of group generalizations/sterotypes contain a lot of truth, as un-PC as it is to say so.
A very engaging book that I read some years back was The Italians by Luigi Barzini. This very literate Italian dude takes a wonderful romp through Italian culture and history explaining these people. (It was such a success that he later did a book call The Europeans, giving a chapter each to the French, English, Germans, etc.)
So, yes, I do look at everybody this way.