There are times when things go beyond the pale and a response is called for. In an otherwise perceptive, if vitriolic, essay on the moral demise of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Schiavo-case posturing by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, op-ed commentator Jane Claymore embroiled herself in an assault on “Orthodox Jew lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”

As a linguist, as well as a Jew, I am bothered when a noun (Jew) is used when a perfectly good adjective (Jewish) is available. As an adjective, the term “Jew” is commonly associated with anti-Semitic overtones. Overreacting? One can only judge the onus of this lapse within the context of her other remarks.

Claymore went on to refer to Abramoff as “an uber-right-wing greedster,” only the final term (greedster) of which seems particularly appropriate for the point at issue. Bombast is beginning to override reason.

Claymore is, of course, correct in her observation that “It is unfortunate but true that stereotypes carry with them a devastating germ of truth by which entire populations are scarred.” That’s what perpetuates stereotypes. If they were total fabrications, they wouldn’t last. Yet if she is so aware of the dynamics of stereotyping, one can only wonder why she offers a primer in that practice.

She attacked Abramoff’s “unholy alliance” with the Christian Coalition’s Ralph Reed in their bilking of an Oklahoma Indian tribe. Her moral outrage is well-placed, whether one is part Native American or not. But she goes off the deep end: “It is worth noting that while Oklahoma has the second-largest Native American population in the United States, it has no reservations at all, and racism is such that the common term for Indians there is ‘Plains Niggers.’ No wonder Abramoff felt free to describe them as ‘monkeys’ and ‘morons.’ One wonders why he hasn’t called them ‘schvartze.’”

Political commentary became mired in a broad proliferation of racial references, now involving four, count them, four groups. And linguistic references quickly turn into racial portrayal: “Neither group, Orthodox Jew or fundamentalist Christian, seems to blink an eye at stealing from the poor and disadvantaged.” Abramoff and Reed are no longer evil men who happen to be orthodox Jewish and Christian; their evil is now characteristic of orthodox Jews and Christians. And that, my friends, in anyone, is the leap that defines stereotyping.

The issue here is not to defend either Abramoff or Reed. Nor is it to defend the behavior of any fundamentalist religious folk. That’s another matter. Nor is it to point out the need to distinguish between people’s beliefs and actions they justify with those beliefs. The issue is the manner of her condemnation. While Claymore may end her essay with jocular references to vampires, she has, one would trust inadvertently, spread a more insidious evil.

Oh, and “beyond the pale.” It is now a phrase indicating going beyond morally and socially acceptable boundaries. A pale was a fence stake. By 1400, the term was used as a metaphor for a limit not to be passed, and then as a term referring to an enclosed area within a country. The most well-known example is the Russian Pale from 1791 to 1917, provinces and districts within which Russian Jews were required to live ­ a practice that grew out of the kind of thinking exhibited in Claymore’s article.

Kurland is a Charleston artist and Covenant House official.