Category Archives: Current Events

The Jewists

Posted on October 18, 2013 | 9 comments

There is something that we can learn from Muslims.

The recent Pew research study – A Portrait of Jewish Americans – created quite a stir across our world for its findings and implications. Whenever such reports are published, it unleashes paroxysms of panic over its iterations of the obvious.

Intermarriage is now up to 58%. One-third of Jews profess no religion, and for most of those who do, their Jewishness is largely ethnic. Those brief highlights shouldn’t obscure other findings buried in the weeds of the report. Some conclusions produced widespread chuckles, to wit: the survey showed that 1% of ultra-Orthodox Jews have holiday trees every December 25, along with 4% of the Modern Orthodox. Really? How exactly are these Jews of Lakewood, Boro Park and Teaneck disposing of their trees without the neighbors noticing? Or, 76% of the ultra-Orthodox “avoid handling money on Shabbos,” while 81% of the Modern Orthodox don’t handle money. Is this a problem in the Haredi world? Are the Haredim more inclined to carry their wallets with them on Shabbos? Are there shteiblach where, if you get an aliya, you have to pay for it on the spot, in cash?

Some of the questions asked were vague to the point of meaninglessness: “do you keep kosher in the home?” According to the survey, a full 17% of the Modern Orthodox do not, and 2% of Haredim do not, both incredible – but what was the question? A meaningful question would have been “do you keep kosher all the time or only in the home?” Another weird finding: 15% of Orthodox Jews attend non-Jewish religious services a few times a year. Really? Are so many religious Jews hedging their bets and chapping a mass every now and then? Obviously there were people pretending to be Orthodox who weren’t; conversely, many say they are “Reform” but just mean they are not observant.

Some numbers don’t add up at all. Orthodox Jews are literally stuck at the figure of 10% of the population. Yet, everyone concedes that our numbers have grown significantly in the last 30-40 years – and we still can’t break the 10% barrier. Why not? Certainly, we are always under-counted, people are not completely honest in these surveys, and something else: there are many non-Jews who are counted in the study. The dark secret of these surveys is that the real number of Jews is sharply inflated by counting anyone who claims any Jewish blood, even if they are not considered Jewish according to Jewish law. The chickens of intermarriage have come home to roost.

The real crisis as documented by the survey, a surprise only to those who haven’t paid attention for the last fifty years, is that overwhelmingly Jews define themselves ethnically rather than religiously. Jewishness is an ethnicity, so it makes no difference whether one’s father is Jewish, one’s mother is Jewish, one had a Jewish grandfather, or he/she just feels Jewish. To most Jews, and to the world at large, halacha doesn’t matter at all. You get to choose your own identity or identities.

Intermarriage has been devastating to the Jewish people. It has attempted to re-shape Jewish identity even as it has ravaged the Jewish home. Of the more than six million people identified as Jews in the survey, it would not shock if close to two million of them were not Jews according to Jewish law but retain – if they do – some ethnic attachment to the Jewish people. Many of them even celebrate their Jewish connection, and their existence has engendered the Jewish parlor game of: “Is he/she a Jew, a member of the tribe?” There is even a website that scores putative Jews on their Jewishness, played mostly for laughs, but still taken seriously by the professional Jewish scorekeepers. Some embrace the successful (Ryan Braun, the Hebrew hammer, past baseball MVP, son of an Israeli Jew!) and distance themselves from the scandalous (Ryan Braun, substance abuser, suspended from baseball, son of a Catholic mother and raised a Catholic!) He was in, but now is officially out of the tribe.

How should we refer to the almost two million people in the United States who claim a Jewish identity but are not Jews? It is here that we can learn from the Muslims.

Muslims are creative, inspired, and are such proficient marketers that they have a good scam going. Whenever they want to distance themselves from Muslims behaving poorly (hijacking, stabbing, rioting, beheading, car bombing, suicide bombing, general terror, etc.) they say the perpetrator is not a Muslim, but an “Islamist.” Islamist. It is a term of very recent vintage, and most convenient. There is no need for hand-wringing, soul-searching, or denunciations of the evildoers by Islamic religious or political figures. They need only say that those terrorists are not Muslims, but Islamists, and have absolutely nothing to do with the true Muslims of the world.

Why can’t Jews do the same? These non-Jews according to halacha are actually “Jewists, ” not Jews. They have some tepid connection to the Jewish people and religion but are not Jews. And we should to our list of Jewists our own share of miscreants, not as violent as the Muslims (sorry, the Islamists), but embarrassing to us nonetheless. So, henceforth, Jews who steal, murder, cheat, lie, molest, double-park or otherwise bring shame upon us are not real Jews. They are Jewists. A real Jew would not behave that way. Any rabbi who does any of those misdeeds – or kidnaps, tortures, defends pedophiles or sermonizes too long – is not a rabbi but a rabbist, a Jewist rabbist. Take all the Jewish politicians who have had “women” problems in the last few years (Weiner, Spitzer, ex-San Diego Mayor Filner): Jewists, all of them! In one fell swoop, Jews can lose our angst, guilt, and shame over Jews behaving badly. They are Jewists, not Jews! We never again have to berate ourselves with such painful questions as: “how can a Jew (or rabbi) behave that way?!” It is because they are not Jews but Jewists acting Jewistically (sometimes with excessive compassion that blinds them to the illegality of their conduct). Problem solved.

If only it were that simple.

Unfortunately, we cannot wish away all the scoundrels and malefactors listed above, nor can we dismiss their Jewist co-religionists. These Jewists – people who are not Jewish usually through no fault of their own – are living, breathing, and walking reminders of the assimilation, intermarriage, and secularization that has devastated the Jewish people (mostly) outside the Torah world, and shows no signs of subsiding.

In fact, the opposite is true. The saddest aspect of the study is that things have to get worse. While professional Jews measure Jewish identity by such indices as support for Israel, political clout, and donations to Jewish organizations, looming over our heads is the reality that these individuals – however fine they might be – are lost to the Jewish people. Most Jewists are lost.

I could tow the party line and tell you that if we did X or Y we would save every soul, but I don’t believe it. There is a snowball effect; intermarriage breeds more intermarriage and assimilation breeds more assimilation. That they left has little to do with us, and if they come back, that too has little to do with us. Not nothing, but little, and what we can do we should do because every soul is precious and a world in itself. But it is America, more than anything else, the land of freedom and opportunity that has swept away the souls of Jews. It is one of the bitter ironies of Jewish history: we have better prevailed in the struggle for Jewish identity in times of persecution than in times of freedom. G-d’s gift to the Jewish people after a millennium of persecution in Europe – the capacity to serve Him faithfully in the freedom and prosperity of the United States – has, for most Jews, been squandered.

The good news is also obvious. The Orthodox world is growing and prospering. Our population is increasing – Orthodox Jews average 4.1 children, non-Orthodox far less than 2 – our levels of observance are increasing, and our retention rate is relatively high. Who could have guessed? The secret to Jewish continuity is Torah and mitzvot. Big shock! Sending children to Yeshiva keeps them Jewish. Who knew?? The Orthodox world is not perfect today, but when was it ever? All people have free choice. But the trends are favorable. In the survey, four times as many Jews thought remembering the Holocaust was more essential to being Jewish than observing Jewish law, and twice as many thought having a good sense of humor was more essential to being Jewish than observing Jewish law. Sure…

Our Sages compared the Torah to water – “water is Torah” (Masechet Bava Kamma 17a) – because water is the vehicle for sustenance as well as the symbol and instrumentality of rebirth. If we drink the living waters of Torah, we live; it is as simple as that. Will this message be heard by our brothers and sisters? I hope so, but it doesn’t appear that they have as yet drawn the same conclusions. They will send kids to Israel for ten days hoping the crash course in Jewish identity endures, increase their social action and work for more inclusivity, etc. – anything but Torah observance. “Success” is defined as marrying a Jew, which, however viewed, is a very low bar.

But to withstand the deluge of assimilation requires more than even Torah and Mitzvot; it requires the capacity to stand alone against the tide – like a Noach or an Avraham or the other giants of our history. It requires knowing when to join and when to separate, and having the inner strength to serve G-d whose commandments transcend the popularity and morals of any particular generation.

That is the secret to our survival as Jews, and not as Jewists. And those are the ideas and values we impart to our children that will ensure the Jewish future as G-d envisioned it when He formed our nation, gave us the Torah and marched us to the Land of Israel.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

The Chacham

Posted on October 11, 2013 | 9 comments

It is exceedingly rare that the death of a 93 year-old should inspire widespread grief and mourning, and even rarer when a nonagenarian is able to remain active, vibrant, razor-sharp and influential until his final breath. But certainly the uncommonness of those two phenomena pales before the stark reality that a funeral of someone that attracts more than 800,000 participants – the largest by far in Israel’s history, and involving almost one out of every seven Jews in the land of Israel – is a singular event marking the passing of a singular personality – HaRav HaChacham Ovadia Yosef zt”l.

He wore many different hats – and most famously the turban and robes of the Rishon L’Tzion, the Sefaradic Chief Rabbi of Israel – as a scholar, leader, political figure, father figure, and role model. Foremost, his loss will be most acutely felt in the world of Torah. In a world where the title of Gaon is tossed about like a used baseball, Chacham Ovadia was that extraordinary individual before whom the entire gamut of Torah was an open book from which he could recite verbatim. That is a marvel that one reads about in connection with rabbis of prior generations; but reading about history and experiencing it in real life are two different things. To anyone who values Torah scholarship, the ability to internalize G-d’s word, both written and oral, from Sinai until modern times, and to comprehend, memorize, categorize and apply it to modern life, is simply remarkable.

For sure, every generation is blessed with great Torah scholars; that is a divine guarantee. Recent generations have been blessed with outstanding Torah scholars, in Israel and in the United States, and far be it from me to rate them on a scale of greatness. But Chacham Ovadia was unique in one respect:

he revived in the Torah world the halachic decisions of the great Sefaradic decisors of the last few centuries, many of whom were essentially lost to the Ashkenazic Torah world. The responsa of most Ashkenazic Torah giants of recent times referred almost exclusively to Ashkenazic decisors, not a sign of prejudice as much as the simple lack of exposure in pre-modern times to the works of the poskim of the Edot Hamizrach. Chacham Ovadia’s major halachic writings – the voluminous major halachic writings – the voluminous Yabia Omer and the more readable Yechaveh Da’at – are veritable encyclopedias that cite (what seems to be) every known opinion on the subject, from both Ashkenazic and Sefaradic authorities.

By way of illustration: a well known rabbi whom I met a few nights ago was carrying with him one responsum of Chacham Ovadia to study on his travels. Just that one – numbering six or seven pages in total – could take hours to study. If all the sources quoted were studied in the original, the review could take days. And the Chacham wrote thousands upon thousands of them, with all the sources in front of his mind’s eye, and was able to analyze, draw his conclusions, and set his answers on paper in comprehensible form to give appropriate guidance to both the questioner and to all students of Torah. That is exceptional genius that is not encountered very often.

That revival of the role of Sefaradic decisors was the tip of the spear in the general revitalization of Sefaradic life, culture, pride and Torah observance that Chacham Ovadia promoted. It is undeniable that the European Jewish elites who were largely responsible for the establishment of the State of Israel did not always look with respect upon the Sefaradim native to the land of Israel or those who came as refugees from Arab lands (like the four year-old Ovadia Yosef, who was born in Baghdad). Discrimination was rampant, educational and employment opportunities were limited, and the culture was perceived as primitive and backward – too Arab and not at all European.

Chacham Ovadia led that revolution as well – l’hachzir atara l’yoshna (to restore the crown to its former glory) restoring pride and dignity to all and Torah observance to many, providing social support to those who needed it, and founding a special educational system to cater to Sefaradim (utilizing the Sefaradic method of Torah study which differs from that of Ashkenazim). It was during his tenure as Chief Rabbi that the late PM Menahem Begin began the process of integrating Sefaradim into the mainstream of Israeli life, riding their support to electoral victory in 1977. That, unwittingly but predictably, gave rise to the formation of ethnic sefaradi political parties which have been a mixed blessing for them and for Israel – first the Tami party of Aharon Abuchatzeira, and then Chacham Ovadia’s radical founding of the Shas party, which broke with the Haredi political establishment – to the mortification and disapproval of Rav Shach and others – and began to attract widespread Sefaradic support.

Certainly, the party was founded on ethnic grievances, and even in the most recent election, ran on a platform of eternal grievance against the establishment notwithstanding that it has been part of that same establishment for almost 30 years. Because of the ethnic label, it is the only Haredi party that draws many secular votes; but parties founded on grievances tend to stultify over time, and such has happened to Shas. Its support has dwindled in recent years as its erstwhile supporters have entered the mainstream, and its political leaders have feuded. It is headed into some rocky territory without its spiritual leader. Nonetheless, its electoral strength – it has always had almost double the number of Knesset mandates of the Ashkenazi Haredi parties – has afforded it substantial control over the religious establishment for almost two decades, with not always positive results.

The clichés that unknowing journalists used to summarize his life have focused on two areas – his leniencies in Jewish law and his leftish politics. Both are misnomers. Chacham Ovadia was certainly a posek who weighed all opinions and perceived halacha as the means by which we serve Hashem, not punish ourselves. As he himself said, one unversed in Jewish law can easily prohibit anything; it doesn’t take much knowledge to say “no” (see Rashi, Masechet Beitza 2b). But he didn’t just arbitrarily say “everything is permissible” to make people happy. He could be strict also. (ModOs take note: in some circles, it also doesn’t take much knowledge to say “yes,” if halachic process and methodology are construed as trifles.) And he had the courage to stand behind controversial decisions, even those which defied the consensus of rabbinic opinion.

Most infamously, Chacham Ovadia issued an opinion in the 1990s in support of surrendering parts of the land of Israel for the sake of peace, and the Oslo debacle could not have occurred without the support of Shas, either implicitly or explicitly. From this vantage point, his political instincts were not always keen. But two points must be underscored that are widely overlooked: his decision was in favor of real peace, not the piecemeal destruction of Israel. (And few authorities would argue that maintaining every inch in the land of Israel in the face of national suicide is a plausible halachic approach; if it were, then even a tactical retreat in the heat of battle would be prohibited.)

The second point is even more telling: he publicly retracted his decision in 2003, writing that “the Oslo Accords are null and void” and that the peace of Oslo –the death and maiming of thousands of Jews – is not what he meant by “peace.” But the left has largely ignored the retraction. Two truths must be recognized: if another surrender agreement is tabled, Chacham Ovadia’s psak will be trotted out again, whether warranted or not (one can always argue that the coming peace will be the glorious peace anticipated by the psak, whether true or not – always the weakest link in the decision itself); and his support of Oslo was utilized disingenuously by Oslo-ites. They would have paid no attention to him had he opposed it like more than 90% of the Rabbis in Israel, to whom they paid no attention. (His late son, Rav Yaakov Yosef, notably disagreed with his father on this issue.)

He was fearless and colorful, which occasionally prompted him to speak somewhat caustically, all points catalogued enthusiastically by the “Gotcha Gang” of today’s faux moralists. Personally, I give a lot of verbal slack to people over 80 years old; they can speak freely! And despite these blips, his love of Israel was enormous, and his anguish over those Jews who are unfaithful to Torah was immense.

The 800,000 people at his funeral were about 800,000 more people than any of us mortals will attract to ours. It was a testament to the honor due to the Torah and its Sages, and to this exalted individual, who was blessed by G-d “who apportioned of His knowledge to those who revere Him.”

May his memory be a blessing and inspiration for all Jews.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Jewish and Republican

Posted on October 4, 2013 | 11 comments

Is there any hope for increasing the participation of Jews in the Republican Party? Should there be?

The Pew Research Study on American Jews released this week presents a stark view of the spiritual lives of our community today. The intermarriage rate is up to 58% and secularism is rampant – all worthy of attention in its time. Politically, 70% of Jews are or lean to the Democrats, while 22% of Jews are or lean to the Republicans. That is completely out of sync with the rest of America, which favors Democrats 49-36%, although other studies show a much closer tally. The Pew findings mirror the election results from 2012, in which Jews favored Obama over Romney by 69-30%.

The gap is enormous.

At a Republican Jewish Coalition forum I moderated last night, two Republicans of note – Ari Fleischer (former Press Secretary to President Bush) and Matt Brooks (longtime head of the RJC) shared their views on the past and future of the Republican Party and its search for support in the Jewish community. Both are seasoned, articulate political professionals, and both defy the media stereotype of Republicans as greedy, heartless oligarchs.

The Jewish vote has not been in play for Republicans for almost a century. Abraham Lincoln was greatly admired by Jews; many actually called him Father Abraham, and some assumed he was Jewish. His greatness and decency steered Jewish votes to his Republican Party. For a half-century after Lincoln’s assassination, the Jewish vote was evenly split, similar to other ethnic groups. That changed abruptly.

The last Republican president who won a majority of the Jewish vote was Warren Gamaliel Harding in the election of 1920. (Actually, a plurality; Harding won 43% of the Jewish vote, to the Democrat James Davis’ 19%. The balance went to the Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who garnered 38% of the Jewish vote while running his campaign from a prison cell.) Debs’ success augured a seismic shift to the far left in Jewish political attitudes and voting patterns. Since then, the Jewish vote for the Democratic candidate has never fallen below 60% and has reached as high as 90%, averaging 79%, with the one outlier the Reagan defeat of Carter in 1980. Even then, Carter received 45% of the Jewish vote to Reagan’s 39%.

The other outlier in the Pew data is the Orthodox support of the Republican Party. Orthodox Jews are or lean to the Republicans over the Democrats by 57-36% (!), signifying not only a greater identification with the ideas and values of the GOP but also an ever-growing chasm between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish communities in lifestyle, attitudes and Jewish identification. As the Orthodox proportion of the Jewish population increases (both through natural growth and through the attrition wrought by the assimilation and intermarriage of the non-Orthodox), the best hope for Republican growth lies in the ongoing secularization of the Jewish people that is robbing the Jewish world of thinking, breathing, practicing and committed Jews. Sadly, what is good for the Republicans is a catastrophe for the Jewish world as a whole.

That point was not raised at last night’s forum, which focused on an analysis of past and future trends as well as current events. Both men decried the inability of the recent Republican nominees to connect with people, real people. Policies that work well in the abstract have to be presented in a way in which real people understand how they will benefit (e.g., from a job rather than a handout), just like failed policies have to be exposed because of their harmful effects to real people and not just as violations of the theories of the Austrian School of Economics. As interesting as those are – all due respect to Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises – most people don’t relate to it, but they do relate to the stories about real people.

That failing is on display now – and one other, see below – in the showdown in DC. The Democrats and mainstream media are skilled at portraying the hardships caused to people by the partial shutdown of the government. Offices closed, workers unemployed and tourists inconvenienced at the national parks and monuments are the staples of news coverage. Interestingly, I polled last night’s audience of hundreds and asked how many of them are affected by the government shutdown? Five hands went up. Certainly, we grieve for anyone out of work even temporarily, although that effect will be ameliorated, as in the past, when the workers return to their offices and are reimbursed with all their back pay. Even temporary unemployment is unsettling, as is the need to access some legitimate function of government and to be turned away. It was shocking, though, how few people in that audience felt any effect at all from the government shutdown, ample testimony to the virtues of limited government and the vices of a bloated bureaucracy. Alas, in the Pew survey, Jews prefer a bigger government with more services over a smaller government with fewer services by 54-38%.

Both men emphasized the traditional American values that have always been embraced by the Republicans, and some that have dissipated that must be revived if the Republican Party will continue to be viable. The values of hard work, self-help and personal responsibility have taken a hit in recent years. By the same token, Republicans have to shed the label of being anti-immigrant, an accusation with which they have been bludgeoned for years, and in part of the party, with some justification. Romney’s missteps in this area cost him; the fact that Democrats tarred him unfairly with being a ruthless tycoon who relishes firing people, murdered a woman with cancer, and throws elderly women over cliffs, didn’t help his cause either.

Both recognized that the past emphasis on social issues served more to alienate potential supporters than to attract them, especially among young people. The unresolved problem is that a good segment of the party is motivated by the social issues, and tends to sit out elections rather than vote for a less-than perfect nominee, even though that is a foolish, counterproductive and self-defeating strategy.

Not unexpectedly, the audience was largely disappointed with the Obama presidency, and not only for its failures of policy. The President does not know how to lead – only to criticize and to decree. He feels that he was elected dictator, not president, and so need not negotiate with Republicans on anything. “I won,” period, oblivious to the reality that the Republicans in the House also won, and with a greater share of the vote that Obama received. And the poor messaging of the Republicans fails to educate the public, as in the inability to counter the President’s repeated assertion that the debt ceiling must be raised so “we can pay our bills,” as if borrowing money to pay bills is actually paying bills.

Ronald Reagan negotiated and compromised with Tip O’Neill like Bill Clinton negotiated and compromised with Newt Gingrich in a way that Obama refuses to with John Boehner. In effect, he has drawn a red line; fortunately, Obama’s red lines have been known to fade in the past.

Asked by an audience member about Obama’s attitudes towards Israel, Ari Fleischer replied, incisively, that in contrast to President Bush, Obama does not perceive Israel “as a friend to be supported but as a problem to be managed.” That is why the body language, the earlier iciness, the bad optics and the policies have tended to the negative –and why the fears in Israel are growing of a bogus US-Iran agreement that echoes the failed agreements between the US and North Korea that simply bought time for the North Koreans to complete their nuclear program.

Is there a path to victory for the Republican Party, and a mechanism to increase Jewish support? Parties out of power tend to look more fractious and unruly. It was Will Rogers who said, back when the Democrats were on the presidential outs, “I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

Today’s Republicans can relate. The cacophony of voices, disparate ideas and solutions, and the multiplicity of wings and factions make the party seem as ungovernable as the nation. But that rowdiness can also be a sign of vitality and vigorous debate. A core remains that should appeal to traditional Jews: personal responsibility, individual liberty, limited government, public assistance not as an entitlement for all eternity but to help the needy become independent and self-sufficient, and a strong, respected America across the globe.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

First Drafts

Posted on September 25, 2013 | 2 comments

On a trip to Moscow several years ago, I visited the Museum of the “Great Patriotic War,” what the Russians call World War II. Among the more memorable, even jarring, aspects of the visit was the chronology. The “Great Patriotic War,” World War II, by the Soviet reckoning began in 1941 (June 22, to be precise) and ended in 1945. When I pointed out to the museum guide who quite earnestly described both the suffering of the Soviet peoples during the war as well as their heroism) that the war actually started in 1939, when the Nazis and their Soviet allies both invaded Poland, she casually replied that the Great Patriotic War began in 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.

Gone and forgotten was the Soviet-Nazi Pact, written out of history. Two years were excised from World War II in order to avoid uncomfortable questions to the ruling bodies.

Similarly, on a visit to New Orleans (oddly, a month before Hurricane Katrina struck), I toured the Museum of the Confederacy that paid homage to the culture and heritage of the Old South. It was filled with guns and clothing and memorabilia of Southern life before the Civil War. There was just slight omission: there was no mention of slavery. That institution didn’t quite find its way into the museum.

Revisionist history is nothing new. History is often written by those with a specific agenda, and usually under the assumption that people are ignorant, have short memories, or are simply looking for confirmation of their biases. What is exceedingly rare historically, but becoming quite common today, is the revisionism of current events, such that events that have unfolded before our eyes are being forgotten or swept under the rug. Others are being shaped by slogans or clichés that are false, misleading or inaccurate.

For example, in a few months (if it hasn’t happened already) who will care about Benghazi? The failure of intelligence, the hesitation in dispatching Special Forces, the lies about a “video” that purported to be the motivation behind the terrorist attack, and the persistent denials and obfuscations about the terror itself are all submerged in a single narrative that echoes Hillary Clinton’s line: “what difference does it make?” Reputations matter more than truth. The mobilization of an entire government to conceal the truth from the people – especially during the height of an election – is shrouded by the sudden and protracted befuddlement of all participants.

So, too, the collapse of Iraq into sectarian violence effaces the progress that had been made over the last decade. Such violence had largely ended before American troops were summarily pulled out after the Obama administration failed to conclude a new Status of Forces Agreement. The narrative of “Iraq War Failure” is coming true, in a way that was unnecessary if the conflict had been managed successfully by the current president. It wasn’t. As Iraq slides into the Iranian orbit, US interests will suffer. But who will recall the proximate cause? History will record only the “Bush Failure.”

The promise to remove US troops from overseas wars is being fulfilled. But after US troops leave Afghanistan, how long will it take for the rebirth of the Taliban and a new base of operations for Al-Qaeda? The current policy of declaring victory in the war on Islamic terror and retreating sounds good but is a terrible harbinger for the future. Those problems will mature under a future president, much like Clinton’s disregard of Osama bin Laden only exploded in his successor’s administration. Ditto the freebie that Assad has received in his use of chemical weapons; the divestment agreement, which has little credibility, serves its main purpose of Obama saving face in the wake of his red lines being ignored. That, too, will be someone else’s problem. Obama is laying the foundation for one of his main legacies: never having sent US troops into battle on his own account. But that “legacy” might be a harmful one, if troops are actually needed to fight evil, and certainly if the United States is thereby reduced to a secondary military and economic power in the world as is projected by the present course.

US guarantees that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon stand now as rhetoric detached from reality. All sanctions and pressure will be lifted if the right words are uttered and the right treaties signed at the right signing ceremonies – just like the North Koreans did en route to their nuclear bombs. A scandal-weary public already little recalls the excesses of the IRS or the NSA. They will be blips in the history books, if that.

Add to this litany of revisionism the president’s style of non-negotiation with Congress over domestic issues, resting on his oft-repeated assertion that he “won” and therefore can do as he wishes. But the former adjunct professor of Constitutional Law overlooks the fact that the Republicans in Congress also “won,” also have constituents to represent, and that the presidency is just one branch of three co-equal branches of government. “I won” is not only arrogance, but a contemptuous dismissal of political norms. It is a shame that no Republican challenges him on those statements; the people elected a president – a Chief Executive of one branch of government – not a dictator.

And among the more risible and unchallenged declarations of the president in recent weeks is that he will not negotiate with Congress over raising the debt ceiling because the United States has “to pay its bills,” and “meet its obligations.” But borrowing more money to pay bills is not the same as “paying bills.” Bills are paid with money that you have and not by incurring new debt. Using one’s MasterCard to pay one’s Visa bill is not quite meeting the country’s (or anyone’s) obligations; it is rather enshrining the abandonment of personal responsibility, thrift, decency, pushing the problem onto the next guy, reaping the popular benefits from a disengaged public, and indicative of a lack of vision or leadership.

Bear in mind today the deceptions, the mendacious speech and slogans, and the soothing talk that masks the government’s dysfunction. They are the first drafts of tomorrow’s history that, like the museums in Moscow and New Orleans, will obscure uncomfortable truths in order to promote the agendas of their sponsors.

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Posted in Current Events