Post-election thoughts

I've been meaning to do an election post, but hadn't gotten to it. I was never all that political, but there's something about being overloaded with election crap for months and months that just makes me want to beat every political talking head with campaign signs until they go into a coma. Anyway, here are a few brief thoughts:


First of all, after hearing about how close the election might be, I decided I wasn't going to waste any energy or emotion on the TV idiots like I did in 2000. Instead, on election night, Mrs. Yid and I had a quiet dinner and then watched a silly horror movie, deliberately not checking any news until it was over. (Partially this was out of principle, partially because I find it incredibly irritating to watch newspeople killing time while they pretend they have new information when they damned well know they don't.)

As it turns out, the right overestimated how fed up/scared/brainwashed the American people are (and I have been listening to the conservative radio station in the car for the last two weeks as they spin and spin it, trying to explain how a majority of Americans-- slim, but still a majority-- could possibly disagree with them). The triumphalist Jewish Republican pundits also apparently also drank the pre-election kool-aid: counter to Abraham Katsman's optimistic claim that Romney would get over 30% of the Jewish vote, he actually stalled out right around 30%, giving Obama 70%. It's true that these are lower numbers than Obama got last time (74-78%), but it's hard to tell how much of that is due to issues with Obama vs. the Democratic party itself (and considering that Katsman was predicting Obama not clearing 60%, still nothing to sneeze at). It is possible that we are seeing the seeds of a gradual Jewish drift to the right, but if that is happening, it's either happening extremely slowly or in such small numbers as to not matter. I do think that eventually there will be less of a reflexive/automatic Jewish attachment to liberal politics, which on a philosophical level is probably a good thing, but I don't see it going past 40% to the Republicans anytime soon, if ever. The reality is that most Jews are liberal, and that even ones who may lean fiscally or socially conservative are not crazy enough for the hard-right conservatives running that wing of the party these days (though if the party decides to disassociate itself from the culture nuts, that may have some ripple effects). One last gloat: Katsman, I told you American Jews don't decide their vote based on Israel. (Nor should they, IMO.)

I recently saw a documentary about the polarization of US politics, and so though I'm happy my candidate won, it's really got me thinking about what's best for the country on a national level. Though I definitely have liberal pet causes, I also genuinely believe that the country is better off when governed through some sort of centrist consensus, particularly in the Legislature. The reality is that while you have crazies in both parties (and legitimate issues with both parties, as well as their media proxies), I still believe that a majority of the country is reasonable and relatively sane. Now that the dust has settled, I'm hoping that some sense will start permeating into Congress and lead to some genuine bipartisan action to fix some of the real issues we're all dealing with, rather than everybody double-downing on the rhetoric and ideology to appeal to their fringes.

Israelis have opinions! Should you care?

That's the existential question posed by two articles I found. One by Abraham Katsman points out that 85% of American Israelis voted for Romney.

Israel has become a “red state” through such a solidly Republican vote.  In fact, if Israel were in the United States, it would be the “reddest” state in the entire country.  Redder, even, than Utah, or Wyoming or Oklahoma.  Significantly redder.  That should be a startling development for the Democrats, who once owned the pro-Israel vote.

Not really. The Israeli left has been on the ropes for anywhere between the last 9 and 13 years (depending on how you count), whereas American Jews tend to be overwhelmingly liberal. I personally think part of the reason for the difference (along with the security situation, which obviously plays a role) is that the Israeli political system allows for a much wider range of representation than the American two-party system. In any event, the Israeli left is in rather bad shape right now, whereas the American Jewish left, while perhaps losing some market share to the center-right, is still clearly the dominant force in the American Jewish political scene. Also, this whole thought experiment is incredibly stupid in the first place, as if Israel was part of the United States, its whole political landscape would be reshuffled as some of its most existential issues (security, synagogue & state, Jewish demographics, the West Bank territories, etc) would be drastically different if not off the table entirely. Hey, what if Israel was part of Mars?

Second, that 14% for Obama is 40% lower than the vote he received from Israel in 2008.  That should worry his campaign.  Even if his support in the Jewish community in America has eroded by only half that much, he may have trouble clearing the 60% mark.  An interesting historical note: for almost a century, every Republican candidate who received 30% or more of the Jewish vote was victorious–and it looks like Romney will win well over 30%.

Sorry, you're wrong. Polls are showing Obama will likely take 75% of the Jewish vote. Romney will probably only get around 25%, like McCain before him.

the Israel-based voters–who overwhelmingly voted Romney–were unusually highly motivated to vote.  Compare that to the 5% participation rate in the rest of the world–voters who lean towards Obama–and quite a contrast emerges between the relative levels of motivation to vote between supporters of each candidate.  This appears to be an extreme example something U.S. polls now show: higher motivation to vote corresponds to higher likelihood of voting for Romney.  And motivation correlates with turnout.  That is a doubly good sign for Republicans.

I guess, but I'm still unconvinced this means much. In 2008, Obama got almost 69,500,000 votes, compared to McCain's 60,000,000. Unless all those voters are from swing states (and they're not), 80,000 votes just isn't all that significant-- unless, of course, you're an operative for the Republican party and are trying to convince people that Romney has more Jewish traction-- and therefore, more general traction, period-- than he actually does. Incidentally, who does Katsman work for? Ah yes, he's a lawyer for Republicans Abroad Israel. Color me shocked.

Not surprisingly, the primary motivating issues in the Israel-based vote are Israel-related issues, such as candidates’ policies on Israeli defense and security, the American-Israeli relationship, the status of Jerusalem, the peace process, and policies regarding Iran and its nuclear program.  82% of respondents considered such issues most important, and 88% of those voted for Romney.  If voters with such concerns so heavily favor Romney among Israel-based Americans, there may be a corresponding  higher-than-expected Romney vote among U.S.-based voters concerned with the same issues.

EXCEPT that most Jews don't vote based primarily on those issues. Because, you know, they don't live in Israel. I guess this might help him with Evangelicals, but guess what, he was already going to get that vote.

What does it all mean?  In the short-run, this is all great news for Romney and the Republicans.  But in the longer run, it is healthier for both Israel and America when strong pro-Israel support is solidly bipartisan. Such a one-sided vote as we just had means that something is out of whack.  In fact, several high-profile Democrats have complained that Israel support is becoming a partisan, Republican issue. 

This vote, however, highlights what those complaining Democrats are missing.  It’s not that the Republicans have somehow driven a wedge between the Democrats and the pro-Israel community; it’s that the Democrats, led by President Obama, have drifted far enough away from their once-solid support of Israel that even life-long Democrats are crossing the aisle.

Right, except that some of the harshest Jewish Democratic critics of Obama's first term are now endorsing him. Whoops.

So what does it all really mean? Not a lot, other than that a lot of Israelis don't like Obama (and, possibly, that a lot of the increased voter registration in this election was done by Republican organizations with the goal of getting more votes for the Republican candidate). However much Katsman tries to spin it, the reality is that both parties still support Israel as an ally, so the contention that the Democrats have abandoned Israel and the only remaining party for Zionists is the Republicans is just hogwash. If the vote is really so one-sided, it indicates that either a lot of those who voted (including registered Democrats) either personally dislike Obama or have been turned off of the Democratic party, or that the Republicans have been better at spreading their message than the Democrats. Let's be honest, how many people actually believe that the "best" candidate or party is always the one that gets the most votes?

Additionally, as mentioned before, American Jews are not single-issue voters.

For the vast majority of Jews, Israel ranks surprisingly low in their considerations as voters. Early in 2012, the Public Religion Research Institute found that among self-identified Jewish adults, 51% of those registered to vote cited the economy as the most important issue driving their voting decision. Fifteen percent cited the growing gap between the rich and the poor, while 10% cited health care and 7% the deficit. Only 4% cited Israel as the most important issue to their vote. 

As David Harris, Executive Director of the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee, put it, "Jews are multi-issue voters. The notion they are single-issue voters is simply wrong."

That kind of deflates the main contention of Republicans like Katsman. Israelis can-- and should-- vote however they want. But however much they'd like us to, American Jews are unlikely to base their vote on what their Israeli cousins say.

Election Mishegoss

Not the Presidential one, I know/hope everyone already has their mind made up on that one. I mean local California stuff. As is my blogging minhag, it's time to revisit my favorite crank not named Tzvi or Dennis (don't worry guys, I'll get back to you): Dr. Terrence Faulkner, J.D., Esquire. (Yes, he has used all of those titles at some time or another. Do you think he went to law school?)

My favorite thing about Dr. F isn't that he's the only 55 year old I know who sounds like he's 85. It isn't that he can always be counted on to oppose just about anything remotely progressive (or even moderate). Or the fact that he doesn't seem to understand how to construct an argument or talk to people in a way that makes them listen, rather than tune you out. No, the best thing about Dr. F is that you can always tell what book he's reading by the arguments he writes for the voter's guide.

In 2006, explaining why he opposed a city resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney, he wrote about how Lincoln had also been unpopular, and that if any President should have been impeached, it was James Buchanan. Nothing like bringing up other bad Presidents that have been dead for 150 years to stay on topic, right? In 2008, carping on about a city proposition to amend the charter to emphasize diversity in hiring, Dr. F invoked Greek mythology and General Custer.

So how could he possibly top that?

The proposition: amending the city charter so that the positions of City Attorney and Treasurer are elected at the same time as Mayor, Sheriff and District Attorney. Mrs. Yid and I went back and forth on that one for a little while; while we kind of like the idea of having staggered elections so there's more overlap, we also noted that generally the "off-year" elections tend to have lower turnout, and there's a cost-saving benefit of consolidating two elections into one.

Not surprisingly, Dr. F disagreed. His rhetorical tool of choice?

The freaking Peloponnesian War.

About 507 BCE (or B.C.) the Athenian statesman Cleisthenes introduced a new form of government into ancient Athens. All free males of the city were allowed to appear, speak, and vote in the governing Ecclesia which met outdoors some 40 times per year on the hill of Pnyx across from the Acropolis. Democracy was born-- admittedly with many flaws and limits. 

Democracy works best when the people are paying very careful attention.
This proposed amendment... would create longer ballots and a situation in which less attention would given by [sic] the voting public to the individual candidates to be elected and the offices to be filled. 

...If the Fathers of the Athenian Democracy-- the law reformer Solon-- the voting reformer Cleisthenes-- and the great Pericles who rebuilt the beautiful temples of the Acropolis-- were to return to San Francisco, I think they would all vote "NO!" on misguided Prop D.

That's his argument against. His rebuttal to the entire Board of Supervisors is even better. All it does is quote Pericles' funeral oration from Thucydides' Peloponnesian War. Way to use that classical education, Doc. Tell me, during that impressive classical education, did they by any chance ever point out that since Solon, Cleisthenes and Pericles never lived in California, it would in fact be impossible for them to "return" here? Just wondering.

Now, lest you think I just hopped back over here to bash on a lone Conservative crank, fear not! I am capable of being even-handed. For instance, we have the proud left-leaning local paper the Bay Guardian, which helpfully published their tear-off voter guide for people to use.

Let's look at two of their endorsements, shall we? Prop 30 and 38 both have to do with funding California public schools:

PROPOSITION 30
TEMPORARY TAX INCREASE
YES
Why are we voting on — and watching the various interests spend about $30 million on — a simple tax increase that in most sane places would be vetted and approved by the state Legislature? Two reasons: California has an archaic and insane rule mandating a two-thirds vote of both houses for a tax hike, which is impossible as long as a few Republicans are still in Sacramento — and our crabby old oddball of a governor, Jerry Brown, insisted in his last campaign that he'd never raise taxes without a vote of the people. 

Prop. 30 is an amalgam, a mixture of what Brown first wanted and what the more liberal supporters of a tax on millionaires were proposing. The guv had to come the table when it looked like the millionaire tax might have enough support to compete with his plan; he made a few concessions, and everyone signed off on this plan. It raises taxes on people with incomes of more than $250,000 (good) and hikes the sales tax by a quarter-cent (not so good) and would bring in $6 billion a year until it expires in 2019. 

A bit of perspective: When former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger whacked the vehicle license fee his first day in office, he cost the state about $4 billion a year, with the stroke of a pen. 

And in a state with more billionaires than any other place in America, a fabulously rich place with the world's eighth-largest economy, the notion that we have to argue about raising $6 billion in taxes is farcical. 

Nevertheless, it's crucial to pass Prop. 30. The money will prevent catastrophic cuts to education and social services. Prop. 30 won't move California a single step forward — but it will keep us all a few inches away from the abyss. 

Brown has gambled his governorship on this — and if he loses, he'll take a good part of the state's future with him. We live in strange and unpleasant times; vote Yes on 30.

All right, seems straight-forward enough. What about the other proposition?

PROPOSITION 38
TAX FOR EDUCATION
YES
There's so much wrong with Prop. 38, starting with its origin. It's another billionaire plaything, the work of the wealthy Molly Munger, who decided, on her own, that the state should raise income taxes to pay for better schools. 

Yes, the state should raise income taxes on the wealthy. Yes, some of that money should go to education. But this is not the optimal way to go about it. 

Because nobody but Munger and her pals vetted the measure, it's got problems. For starters, it's not a tax increase on the rich — it's a tax increase for just about everybody. If you make more than $7,300 a year, your state income tax would go up. Granted, not by much: The sliding scale starts at 0.4 percent (about $30 a year for the very low end of the scale, and the wealthiest will pay much more) but still: the tax burden in this state (with its high sales-tax rates) falls disproportionately on the poor and middle class, and Munger's measure should have exempted all but the top earners. And it's got a popular, but troubling distribution scheme — between 60 and 85 percent of the estimated $10 billion a year in new revenue will go to K-12 education. The schools need the money — but so do cities and counties who pay for public health, affordably housing, public safety and a lot of other priorities. 

But the question facing the voters isn't whether Munger is a self-serving brat who went her own way on this, or whether there are flaws in the measure. It's whether the state ought to raise taxes to pay for education. With all the duly noted reservations, the answer to that question has to be yes.

Ok, so the Guardian endorses both propositions. Here's the problem: only one of them can pass. Per California budget rules, when two conflicting income tax measures pass, the one with the most votes wins. So if Prop 38 wins, Prop 30 by definition does not win... which means it triggers $6 billion in cuts from the education budget.

Reading the explanation of the "endorsement" of Prop 38, it sounds like the Guardian Staff understands this and really just want to alert their readers that we need to find a long-term solution to the education issue... but then why endorse both propositions when they cancel each other out? When did literacy stop becoming a requirement to work at a newspaper? Did the writers and editors just not communicate on this one? It feels like a mistake. But then why is it still on their online version and why has no correction been issued? What the hell, people?
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Did you enjoy this, dear readers? I hope so. Now make sure you go and vote. I don't even care if your vote cancels mine out, just make sure you go do it. Don't be one of these smug morons.

Nobody's Perfect- but some folks try harder

A recent comment on Dovbear from SJ perked my interest. SJ was trying to fight the perception that the GOP is anti-women or anti-gay. Rather than point to the increased visibility of minorities and women in GOP leadership roles, though, SJ decided instead to go on the attack by posting a couple of links to op-eds bashing Democrats for not being as inclusive as they claim to be. Compare this to an op-ed from some Montana paper taking liberal pundits to task for demeaning the presence of black, Latino and female speakers at the Republican convention:

The parade of accomplished minority and women speakers at the Republican National Convention truly stood out, particularly because of the  alleged Republican “war on women” theme and relentless accusations of Republican racism. 

But sure enough, there was no shortage of critics showing dismissive regard toward GOP speakers...

...Proof is in what people do, and it was Republicans who put these people in office and at the convention podium. People should believe what they see, yet they continue to hear things like this from Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “I think we believe that women can see through that nice shiny packaging that the Republicans have been putting out there, through to what’s inside, which is really a disaster for women’s future, extreme policies.” 

OK. Republican policies are fair game. But diminishing the women who were featured at the convention as “shiny packaging”? With language like that, just who is waging the “war on women”? 

... The prize for insulting, obnoxious temerity goes to Los Angeles Times columnist David Horsey, who essentially accused Republicans of resorting to tokenism — and worse — at the convention. 

“It would be easy to dismiss this as tokenism and window dressing — which, of course, it is — but there is something bigger behind it,” he writes. “Republicans truly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that the best thing a poor Latino or an unemployed African American can do to better his or her condition is to vote for a party that intends to let rich people keep more of their money. Showing off all those non-Caucasian officeholders is a way of saying to skeptical minority voters, “These guys have chosen the Republican path and just look where it has gotten them!”

Tokenism, it seems, suggests unworthy people who were plucked off the street and put at the podium as props. But that simply wasn’t the case. Many of the minority and women speakers named above are accomplished leaders, and in some cases, rock stars in the Republican Party. They deserve to be featured, rather than dismissed as being somehow illegitimate or unworthy.

Here's my take: The difference between the parties on sexism and homophobia is that the Democrats rhetoric/ideology aspires towards an ideal (gender and orientation equality) that their actions fall short of. The GOP's actions, by contrast, seem to be more or less aligned with their general philosophies on those issues: some Republicans accept gays on pragmatic/libertarian grounds (though many don't), and women, while valued, seem to be seen by many in the party as supporters, not leaders.

This is borne out by statistics: In this Congress, female Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1. In the last Congress, it was closer to 3 to 1. Of course, numbers aren't everything, but they seem to show that in the GOP, women are either not encouraged to seek political leadership roles, or not seen as having the same abilities/qualifications as men (Remember that Pat Boone article that said any time women were elected to office it was because there were no competent men around to do the job?)

This doesn't mean Republicans necessarily "hate" women, minorities or gays or that Democrats are incapable of being sexist, homophobic or prejudiced. However, the disparity does suggest that there are some real limiting factors keeping women from being as successful in party leadership-- and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is true by, let's say a hundred-fold, for gays.

That doesn't mean that the speakers at the convention are deficient or unqualified-- but you'd have to be living under a rock to claim that tokenism-- or window dressing, or pandering, take your pick-- isn't at work here. It's at work with the Democrats, too, of course-- I'd say it's become a ubiquitous element of American politics these days. At conventions, on political ads, at debates, you always hear about these random people whose stories and faces are meant to exemplify an entire class of constituents to convince women, minorities, hunters, military supporters, teachers, small business owners, whoever, that this candidate, this party, really understand and care about you, YES, YOU! It's unabashed showmanship, and the fact that minorities were being paraded around to be seen and counted at the convention exemplifies the exact issue the GOP is trying to fight: the perception that it's the party of old white men. The existence of minorities within the party is a good thing, but until they become unremarkable, until their race or gender clearly isn't a major factor in picking them to speak at conventions, the GOP still has a lot of work to do. That's not the speakers' fault-- it's the party's.

Frustration does not equal Conversion

I like to consider myself pretty open-minded. By which I mean that though I have some deeply held opinions when it comes to things like religion or politics, I try to be open to other points of view, if only to understand where folks are coming from (this could be related to why I spend so much time reading Orthodox blogs or why most presents I buy for my wife are memoirs of people growing up in eclectic religious groups).

So it's been interesting during this electoral cycle to hear the Republican party and its mouthpieces going on about how many of their elusive voter demographics they're supposedly going to bag this time.

I won't lie, as a liberal late 20-something I have plenty of reasons to not be very happy with Obama-- there are social, military and foreign policy areas where he's made promises he hasn't kept, the economy still isn't very good, and perhaps most galling to the youth vote, has proven himself to be just as corruptible by the game of politics as anyone else.

So yes, young people, especially those still politically engaged, are definitely annoyed, which is where folks like JustNew Productions come in. The company, run by two quasi-recent college graduates, has gotten a lot of attention for a Gotye parody video focusing on the various ways Obama has disappointed them.

I watched the video and couldn't fault them for their opinions, in fact I share a lot of them. However what's curious about cases like the "Obama that I used to Know" video is how fundamentally Republicans seem to be misreading it.

In this clip, a Fox News lady tries to present the filmmakers not only as deeply dissatisfied but also a symptom of how youth voters are so fed up with Obama they're potentially ready to go run to join the Republicans. However if you look at the lyrics of their song (or watch the interview, where they seem bemused by the tone of the questions and framing by the news anchor), their big problem seems to be not only that Obama isn't doing enough to help them economically, but also that he hasn't lived up to the image he presented to young, mostly liberal voters. These kids are annoyed with Obama's hypocrisy about not closing Guantanamo and discomfited by the fact that he is simultaneously a Nobel Peace Prize winner and has been using predator drones for assassinations. They want to relax drug laws and enforcement, and seem to not be fans of Sarah Palin. They're mad about a lack of results in the economy, but also that Obama hasn't lived up to the foreign and domestic policy he promised them. That's a far cry from wanting to go over to the Republican party-- they don't want to elect Romney, they want Obama of 2012 to start acting like the Obama of 2008! The Republicans can't-- or won't-- comprehend that these kids, and many more like them, aren't disaffected moderates whose votes are "in play," they're pissed off liberals who want Democrats to start living up to the values they keep campaigning on.

Furthermore, by misreading people like the filmmakers, the Republicans are demonstrating that they don't seem to understand what makes people become Democrats. No matter how much the Republican party tries to rebrand itself, no matter how many open-minded college students claim that they don't care about social issues anymore and they want a big tent, when the rubber hits the road, the present-day GOP still has a social platform, and on many issues, it is in stark contrast to many young people's positions. Reporters have described Romney's pick of Ryan as "reframing" the election along ideological lines; the reality is that for people paying attention, it has always been about ideological lines-- specifically, red lines. No matter how much people may dislike behavior by members or leaders of their party, absent better choices, they will probably stick with them rather than vote for a person-- or a party-- who they disagree with even more. That's just human nature.

While young people may have economic opinions (and certainly are affected by economic policy, as they're discovering), my impression is that economic issues alone don't drive many people's votes-- young or old. It's the constellation of other issues, foreign, domestic, and social, that people have more emotional and visceral  investment in. Unless the GOP becomes a radically different party within my lifetime, I am fairly confident that I will never vote for a Republican candidate-- because even if I agreed with them on certain issues, the social values of their party are so fundamentally opposed to my own that it would be a betrayal of my other principles to do so.

In my opinion, this same phenomenon can be applied to the Jewish vote. Republicans (especially Republican Jews) don't like to hear it, but long as a majority of American Jews still believe in liberal politics, especially on social issues, there's no way the Republicans will get the Jewish vote. That may change over time as shifting demographics alter the political landscape, but until most Jews are right-wing Orthodox, it's not going to happen.


Whether you attribute it to naiveté, personality, life experience, or something else, if people believe in liberal values, the fact that liberals aren't living up to their names isn't going to make them vote Republican. It may disappoint them enough that they stop voting entirely (which I suppose is a net win for the other side), but more likely they will hold their nose and cast their vote for what, in their mind, is the lesser of two evils-- like everyone else has been doing for a long time.

Pundits can argue and campaigns can spin all they want; if Republicans think frustrated liberals (not moderates) are going to come out and vote for Romney, they're the ones who are naive.

Casual Stupidity

When it comes to op-eds, I think I'm bothered more by casual nastiness, bigotry or stupidity than I am when people are super-explicit about it. Rush Limbaugh's comments about Sandra Fluke, for example, while atrocious, were so over-the-top that people sat up and noticed, and were then able to put pressure on him to own up to the fact that calling someone a slut for advocating a policy shift during a Congressional deposition is over the line.

It's harder-- and in some ways, more pernicious-- when the venom is embedded in someone's article, or speech. Here are some examples from this week's WND:

- Barry Farber championing algae as a gasoline replacement:

I have a dream. About 20 years from now a fifth-grade teacher somewhere in America will ask her students, “Who can name our two most important inventors, and why they are the most important?” And little Cathy stands up and replies, “Thomas Edison and Adrian Vance. Edison lit up the world and Vance put the oil-producing nations of the Middle East in their place – selling pistachios alongside the bagel carts in mid-town Manhattan.”

Dude, really? So Middle Eastern folks' proper "place" is as snack vendors? I love how Barry not only paints an idyllic picture of casually racist 5th graders, but that he also rips of Martin Luther King to do it. Nice.

- Joseph Farah explaining why Christians and Muslims have zero theological common ground:

If you compare the personality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the Christian and Hebrew God – with Allah, Islam’s god, the contrast could not be more stark. The Hebrew-Christian God is characterized by love. The Islamic god is characterized by war and vengeance. The Hebrew-Christian God provides a clear path to redemption and personal salvation in a fallen world – through repentance. The Islamic god provides only one certain path to personal salvation – martyrdom.

Put aside Farah's strawman about Islam thinking the only way to be a good Muslim is to martyr yourself. What's with pretending the Jewish (not Hebrew, Joe, Jewish) God says anything about "personal salvation" or even that we live in a specifically "fallen" (as opposed to imperfect) world? Stark contrasts between depictions of God? You can find differences between depictions of God from book to book in the Torah, to say nothing of Prophets or Writings. That's one of the starting points of Biblical criticism, Lurianic Kabbalah, and most lay-led Dvar Torahs. The God of the Bible goes through a myriad of personality shifts, sometimes from sidra to sidra, and that's part of what makes Him an intriguing character. Not only does this Unified God argument go against tons of Jewish textual tradition, it also runs counter to hundreds of years of Christian criticism of Judaism! How often have we heard about the "loving Christian God" being compared to the "vengeful" or "legalistic" Jewish God? Now you want to say there's no daylight between them? I'd be suspicious of this anyway, but all the more so given that now you want to play buddy-buddy so that you can beat up on Islam.

It's ironic that Farah is talking about how Christians need to recognize the important theological gaps between them and Muslims while simultaneously demonstrating he knows next-to-nothing about Judaism or traditional Jewish texts. Recall that this was the guy who fought against an Old Testament scholar questioning whether the Jewish God was really a "creator" of Heaven and Earth by using quotes from the Greek New Testament. Please, Joe, leave us out of your craziness.

- Last, Dennis Prager demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that the goal of university is to get young people to become nihilists, steal their parents' property, and then eat them:

If this [comically hyperbolic] list is accurate – and that may be ascertained by visiting a college bookstore and seeing what books are assigned by any given instructor – most American parents and/or their child or children are going into debt to support an institution that for four years, during the most impressionable years of a person’s life, instills values that are the opposite of those of the parents. 

And that is intentional. 

As Woodrow Wilson, progressive president of Princeton University before becoming president of the United States, said in a speech in 1914, “I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.” 

In 1996, in his commencement address to the graduating seniors of Dartmouth College, then-president of the college, James O. Freedman, cited the Wilson quote favorably. And in 2002, in another commencement address, Freedman said that “the purpose of a college education is to question your father’s values.” 

For Wilson, Freedman and countless other university presidents, the purpose of a college education is to question (actually, reject) one’s father’s values, not to seek truth. Fathers represented traditional American values. The university is there to undermine them.

First of all, I like how Prager's supposed evidence of indoctrination of students doesn't consist of any actual citation of texts, or even quotes from professors, but rather a list of liberal college strawmen which he claims are backed up by hypothetical reading lists. Second, isn't it fantastic that two quotes from two college presidents (a mere 82 years apart!) about students challenging their preconceptions are used to suggest the existence of an evil college cabal poised on turning young people against their parents? Dennis has a point about universities having political bias, but he loses his credibility once he starts crying about how the evil liberal universities turn innocent college students against their hard-working conservative parents. You may not have noticed, Dennis, but liberals are about half the country, and they send their kids to college, too. My great-grandparents were Jewish socialists. My father is a would-be hippy whose only political rule is "never vote Republican" and is mad at Obama for being too aggressive against medical marijuana. For me to have attended a school that rejected my father's values, I would have had to be going to Brigham Young (with maybe Bob Jones as a safety school).

For the record, I attended a very liberal high school and college, and if anything, it made me slightly conservative (relative to the people I was around) because I was exposed to arguments and people that I disagreed with (particularly on Israel) and it required me to think about why that was so. If I had taken Dennis' advice and stayed home (and done what?), I might have been the very model of the unthinking reflexive young liberal he so decries. And no, I still wouldn't have believed in "traditional American values."

Doug Giles gets things wrong-- world is shocked!

In related news, gravity still makes things fall down.

First off, a disclaimer: I am about the biggest non-activist you are likely to find. I can't stand rallies, dislike crowds in general, and generally prefer a calm conversation to shouting slogans any day of the week. I also am rather skeptical about Occupy Wall Street-- not because its general principles are necessarily wrong, but simply that I don't think drum circles really accomplish anything. Capitalism may have some major problems, but it's what we've got to work with, and I'd much rather see passionate young people working to help others than yelling about how we need to tear it all down, man.

That said, as part of a silly attempt to mock the OWS protestors, Doug Giles inadvertently winds up making their points for them.

from an earth angle, you are truly the fortunate ones and have hit the lifestyle lotto. Trust me, there are stacks of people from developing countries who would love to have what you ingrates whine about. Just ask an illegal alien.

Giles' whole article can be boiled down to: you live in America, hippies! You have clean water, working toilets, electricity, and food. Most of the world would kill to be in your shoes!

To a large degree, he's right, of course-- however that entirely sidesteps the point that OWS is making. The issue is not that the OWS are Christ-like refugees, it's about the comparative power and wealth inequality that exists in America. It's about pointing out that within the same country, there are some pretty major disparities. That's what the 99/1% mantra refers to. Saying, "to the rest of the world, the 99% is like the 1%" doesn't change the disparity; all it does it show that in a world where millions of people don't have clean water or toilets, the fact that corrupt business executives have bidets made of solid gold or go into convulsions when someone threatens to tax them for buying a new yacht or private jet is beyond gauche, it's downright obscene. You think you're scoring a point against OWS, Doug, but what you're really demonstrating is that the richest 1% and their defenders in the US really have no leg to stand on when it comes to complaining-- about pretty much anything.

Yes, I feel lucky to live in this country. I'd much rather live here than, say, Chad. But there are some serious issues happening right now with American society and culture, and the economy is a huge part of it. I was raised upper middle-class and went to private schools my whole life. I'm educated, my family is reasonably wealthy, etc. Since graduating, I've been stuck in a go-nowhere job for four years. I have friends who are in their late 20s-- privileged, educated, hardworking people-- who are still living in their parents' basements. They're being turned away from jobs they apply to because they're vastly overqualified for them. We are perfect examples of how the American economy continues to squeeze the middle-class into oblivion. At this rate, I'm probably not going to be middle-class. I'm probably going to be working poor. I've come to accept that-- but if someone with my education and background is facing the prospect of living poor, imagine what people who didn't have my privileges are going through.

An entire generation of Americans are finishing school, trying to join the work force, and getting the door slammed in their collective face-- and all the while, we keep hearing the super-rich screech about how unappreciated they are anytime someone talks about regulating the business sector or raising taxes on the only people that seem to be able to afford it. I'm not saying I want a Communist state, but clearly something isn't working here. 

Sorry Doug, pointing out that other countries and other people have it worse is not an argument, it's a distraction. And it's a bad one, at that.

Family History vs. Family Facts

When it comes to genealogy, I have something of a personality split that pops up from time to time. On the one hand, as a researcher and historian, I try to be very cautious about what information I consider reliable and pass along to others. At the same time, as a writer and storyteller, I love the family yarns and narratives, and it's very hard to avoid speculating and "putting pieces together," even when they may not all be there.

An example: When I first started tracing the tree, one of the stories that kept coming up from my great-aunts about their mother's family was that their grandmother had been in a Tsarist prison. As I interviewed each one in turn, I kept getting more pieces of the puzzle. The story is that the grandfather was making his own liquor in their shtetl, that someone informed on him, and that when the police came to arrest him, he wasn't there-- and so his wife took the blame and went to prison for several years. Depending on the chronology, this may have precipitated-- or happened during-- the family's immigration to America. Now, despite there being zero documentation for this, it is one of my favorite bits of family lore, and I have repeated it to various cousins and relatives whenever I get the chance-- though always clearly identifying it as a story.

Given this background, I'm somewhat sympathetic-- though maybe the word "almost" is more appropriate-- to Sen. Marco Rubio's recent debacle with his family history. Rubio, whose star in the GOP has been steadily rising (at least according to the national news media) since his election to Senate in 2010, has made his parents' story of immigration from Cuba a major talking-point of his campaigns and political narrative. According to Rubio, his parents "fled" Cuba after Fidel Castro's coup and he was raised as a son of exiles in Florida. The story is compelling, powerful, and resonates with a lot of people-- both in the Cuban community and beyond it. It's a classic tale of coming to the United States to escape persecution, and it has the additional benefits of the "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" narrative, as well as a chance to emphasize how Cuban Communism under the Castros utterly failed, which are undoubtedly major reasons Rubio's story appealed to GOP voters.

There's only one problem with all of this: it's not, strictly speaking, true.

Researchers have found documents showing that the Rubios came to the US in 1956. At the time, Castro was not even in Cuba. He wouldn't take over for another three and a half years. Rubio's parents left Cuba not because of political repression but simply to make a better life.

Rubio has tried a few different tactics to defend his story in light of the newly revealed facts. The first thing he's done is to say that it's not his fault he didn't know this stuff:

In a brief interview Thursday, Rubio said his accounts have been based on family lore. “I’m going off the oral history of my family,” he said. “All of these documents and passports are not things that I carried around with me.”

So... it doesn't matter that I said things that weren't true because I never bothered to verify if they were true? Not the defense I'd go with. A much better version of this argument would be, "I'm as shocked as you are. I was always told, by this relative, that relative, and this other relative, that my parents came here in 1959. " That makes it sound like you actually care about the facts, as opposed to being involved in a tug-of-war between your parents' own documents and the fantastic universe you've created in your head where your Dad led his own anti-Castro militia group (Rubio's Rebels?) through the Cuban highlands, set Fidel's beard on fire, and then beat a hasty but heroic retreat to fight another day (or spawn a kid who would get elected into public office, whatever).

The other approach has been to claim that none of this matters anyway, because details are stupid:

"...It’s not like they discovered my parents were from Canada. My story is essentially the same one. My parents came to this country in search for a better life. They were prepared to live here permanently but always wished they could go back to Cuba," he said.

Again, nice try. There's a world of difference between going back for a visit when you're already established somewhere else and deciding, "Nah, I'll stick with Miami," and suffering actual political repression, to say nothing of the trauma of being a legitimate refugee having to flee a country with nothing and having to start entirely from scratch.

I'm not saying the Rubios had it easy. In a lot of ways their story is quite similar to many of my ancestors' stories. There's nothing wrong with your standard immigrant tale. At the same time, I would never identify my ancestors as political exiles or refugees. Of course, most of them were trying to escape increasingly tyrannical and discriminatory governments, but the vast majority's primary motivations seem to have been economic.

My take? Beware of politicians selling personal narratives as a way to appeal to a broader constituency-- their primary goal is not simply to tell a story but to make a connection, which also means that they may not care that much about the details. Rubio has clearly used the narrative of his parents being political exiles as a foundation-stone for his political identity, despite the fact that they were not. The fact that he's claiming this changes "nothing" only reinforces how he's much more concerned with protecting the image he was able to develop based on that story than the actual family history he pretends has shaped him so significantly. Not only is this a case of a politician not respecting his audience, but sadly also an instance of someone exploiting their family history in bad faith.

I can relate. Aunt Bozette has invented more than a few off-kilter theories about our family over the years, usually with precisely zero evidence. Among the best ones were that since one of her grandmothers was Hungarian, clearly her grandfather had to also have been Hungarian, and that this must have been how they met. Never mind that I had documents going back one hundred years showing that his family had been living in Czestochowa and that he and all his siblings had been born there, too. Aunt Bozette was "convinced," because, among other things, she clearly thought being Hungarian was sexier than being Polish. When I clearly wasn't budging, she accused the records of being unreliable because they spelled the family name differently than the American relatives did. (When I pointed out that name spellings varied in Poland, that many Jews of that period could not read Polish, and that members of our own family had been illiterate, she went into an e-rage, sputtering that we had "always" been very educated-- and offered, as proof, that her father and uncle had both gotten degrees from NYU.)

The reverse has also happened: there have been several occaisons when long-standing family stories have wound up being not exactly true. When this came up, my reaction was not defensiveness or anger, but excitement-- now we could find out the real story! There's nothing wrong with correcting the record or amending the stories. (Was I disappointed when I found out that great-great-uncle Nathan wasn't shell-shocked in World War One? Sure-- but then I got to find out about his actual record as a Marine stationed in Cuba during the Banana Wars.) There's also nothing wrong with qualifying the stories as stories-- which exist in their own right as a family commentary or gloss on the actual events. It's not "bad," they're just different kinds of data. Where you get into trouble is when you start giving the stories preference over the available, documented, evidence, because you think the truth isn't as interesting, scandalous, or beneficial to the greater narrative you want to tell. That's when you cross the line into being dishonest and verging on sleazy.

It's not necessarily Rubio's fault that, absent hard facts, that he made some embellishments (or repeated the embellishments of others)-- though given that he clearly was interested in his family history, I find it strange that he never bothered to ask for an actual date-- but everything he does as a response to it is all on him. So far, I'm unimpressed.

Let's all give him a hand... or at least a finger

Am I the only one unimpressed by this story?

Just two weeks ago, former New York Mayor Ed Koch was telling city voters to elect a Republican to Congress, to "send a huge message to President Obama that we're not happy with how he's dealing with Israel." 

Now, one speech to the United Nations and a one-on-one chat later, Koch is an enthusiastic backer of the same president's reelection. 

The one-time Democrat tells his supporters that it's all water under the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge. 

"I'm now on board the Obama Reelection Express," he says in an email to supporters. 

Bob Turner, elected on Sept. 13 to fill the seat once held by Democratic Anthony Weiner, had made an issue in his campaign of Obama's position that Israel's borders before the 1967 Mideast war should be the baseline for peace talks, leaving unmentioned the caveat that there should be mutually agreed land swaps that would take into account the new realities on the ground. 

That earned the endorsement of Koch, who in a recorded phone message to voters in the Jewish-heavy district said that signaling dissatisfaction with Obama's position was the "most important" reason to back Turner. 

Koch now says he thinks Turner's win had the desired effect, pushing the U.S. to come out against a vote for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations and to return to direct negotiations with Israel. 

In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Koch says that "whatever rift existed before -- and there was one -- that's gone," and that he's ready to convince Jewish voters that Obama's the best candidate. 

"His speech at the U.N. in support of Israel was extraordinary. I couldn't have made a better one myself," he told WNBC-TV in New York. "I have shoes and will travel to Florida or any place they want to go."

Shorter version: Ed Koch is a flip-flopping hack.

It was bad enough that he pushed the idea that the 9th district election should be a "referendum" on Obama's Middle East policies, but now one good speech later and he's trying to sell himself as in Obama's corner again? Do us all a favor and just stay out of it, Ed.

Seriously, I know it's become a supposedly great badge of honor when a person sticks to their principles and is willing to work with people from both parties to advance those principles, but every time I hear about Ed Koch it sounds like he's screwing someone over. I don't think people should be slaves to political parties, but if you're going to have a political change of heart and become a neocon, do it like Reagan or Perry did and stick to your guns. Actually become a Republican or ideological conservative-- don't pull this pseudo-independent, wishy-washy, "I campaigned against you a mere three weeks ago, but now I've totally got your back" crap. Why should anyone trust a word that comes out of his mouth, Democrats or Republicans?

Honestly, if Ed Koch's opinion still carries weight with any voters, Jewish or otherwise, it's just more proof that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote.

GOP Debate Reactions

I haven't had cable in almost a year, so my ability to watch live political theater is usually pretty limited. Last night I didn't have much to do, though, so I caught the debate through a live stream via politico. Here are my (belated) gut reactions, using combined transcripts from NBC and Roll Call.:

Ron Paul: Someone's senile paranoid grandfather has escaped from his spare room over the garage and thinks he's running for President. Quotes:

"With the airlines that are responsible for carrying their cargo and their passengers. I mean, why — why should we assume that a bureaucracy can do better? And look at the monstrosity we have at the airports. These TSA agents are abusive. Sometimes they’re accused of all kinds of sexual activities on the way they maul people at the airport."

So TSA should be abolished because its workers keep molesting people at airports. Wow, no poisoning the well here.

"We’re spending — believe it or not, this blew my mind when I read this — $20 billion a year for air conditioning in Afghanistan and Iraq in the tents over there and all the air conditioning. Cut that $20 billion out, bring in — take $10 off the debt, and put $10 into FEMA or whoever else needs it, child health care or whatever. But I’ll tell you what, if we did that and took the air conditioning out of the Green Zone, our troops would come home, and that would make me happy."

It's rare that a professional politician running for election makes a suggestion so totally divorced from any concept of reality or consequences. Ron Paul strikes me as the kind of guy who would watch The Little Mermaid and suggest that we should all just learn how to breathe underwater.

"I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in...And there's capital controls and there's people control. So, every time you think of fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in."

Spoken like a man with a crazy newsletter, possibly hand-mimeographed.

Newt Gingrich: Football coach who thinks he's the quarterback. Not a good mix. Quotes:

"And if this president had any concern for working Americans, he’d walk in Thursday night and ask us to repeal [Obamacare] because it’s a monstrosity. Every person up here agrees with that."

How dare that bastard not ask us to repeal the legislation he spent most of his term fighting for and which our party keeps attacking via Congress and lawsuits? It must tell you he really hates Americans.

"We should make English the official language of government...We should insist that first-generation immigrants who come here learn American history in order to become citizens. We should also insist that American children learn American history. 

And then find a way to deal with folks who are already here, some of whom, frankly, have been here 25 years, are married with kids, live in our local neighborhood, go to our church."

Yeah, we can't deport the illegals we know... that's awkward! Those other guys, though, that's fair game.

Michele Bachmann: Comparable to someone who's already told everyone they're going to be in NASCAR and has ordered a celebration cake without bothering to learn to drive. Quotes:

"I was just last week down in Miami. I was visiting the Bay of Pigs Museum with Cuban-Americans. I was down at the Versailles Cafe. I met with a number of people, and it’s very interesting. The Hispanic-American community wants us to stop giving taxpayer- subsidized benefits to illegal aliens and benefits, and they want us to stop giving taxpayer-subsidized benefits to their children as well."

I like how when it comes to where she ate lunch, she'll give details down to the zip code, but when she starts discussing conversations which totally challenge the conventional wisdom of what the Hispanic community thinks about immigration and benefits, all we get is, "I met a guy." Way to bury the lead.

"But one thing that we do know, our immigration law worked beautifully back in the 1950s, up until the early 1960s, when people had to demonstrate that they had money in their pocket, they had no contagious diseases, they weren’t a felon. They had to agree to learn to speak the English language, they had to learn American history and the Constitution. And the one thing they had to promise is that they would not become a burden on the American taxpayer. That’s what we have to enforce."

Our immigration law worked "beautifully" until the 50s? Wow, how... WASPy of you. I'm going out on a limb and guessing you don't have a lot of Ellis Island connections in your family, Governor. Or, you know, that you don't read history books. One or the other. Incidentally, there's a huge difference between promising to do something (learn US history, for instance), and actually doing it. I say this as a descendant of immigrants-- some of who became Communists, and at least one of whom, yes, became a polygamist. Signing a piece of paper doesn't mean a thing.

Herman Cain: Desperate for someone to notice him, so he keeps squawking about business-themed solutions for everything. Unfortunately, most political issues cannot be solved by simply copying off Chile's playbook. Quote:

"I call it my 9-9-9 economic growth plan.Throw out the current tax code, a 9 percent tax on corporate income, our 9 percent tax on personal income and a 9 percent national sales tax. If 10 percent is good enough for God, 9 percent ought to be good enough for the federal government."

Yeah, let's pick random numbers out of a hat because they sound fun and alliterative and base government policy on them! Even better, let's pretend this makes sense by alluding to tithing. Way to sell the dream, sir. Still, I suppose 9-9-9 is better than 6-6-6-... unless, of course, someone turns your poster upside down. Be careful; this only has to happen once and you'll lose all the evangelicals.

Rick Santorum: Looked pained every time someone asked him a question. He doesn't really want this job, does he? Quote:

"I’ve done things. We’ve brought Democrat and Republicans together."

John Huntsman: Another guy that really, really, wants people to notice him, but has the unfortunate task of trying to make a reasonable, sane person seem exciting in a contest with a bunch of screaming chimps flinging their own poop at each other. It's also precious how he gets pissy at discussing homeland security and foreign policy because he prevents him from talking about jobs. Quote:

"we’ve spent about 15 minutes now on homeland security. The greatest gift we could give this country on the 10th year anniversary, Rick, is a Homeland Security Department... that doesn’t make us all feel like there’s a fortress security mentality that is not American... 

I’m guessing there are a whole lot of people tuned in around this country who are saying, why are we spending all this time talking about the smaller issues? We’ve got 14 million people unemployed. We’ve got millions more in this country who are so dispirited they’ve quit looking. This is a human tragedy that we’re talking about, moms and dads and families that completely go without. 

...While all these other issues are important, let’s not lose sight, folks, of the bottom line here. We’ve got to get back in the game as a country. We’ve got to make this economy work."

Mitt Romney: A vapid charmer. (He's welcome to use that as a campaign slogan, by the way. It's on the house.) If he was a little more cut-throat he might be able to get the charisma thing going, but as it is, he seems too nice, as in this quote where he had a great opportunity to slam his two biggest potential rivals, Perry and Obama, and winds up complimenting both of them:

"My guess is that Governor Perry would like to do it a different way second time through. ...we’ve each taken a mulligan or two. And — and my guess is that that’s something you’d probably do a little differently the second time. He just said he’d rather do it through legislation second time through... I think his heart was in the right place. 

Right now, we have people who on this stage care very deeply about this country. We love America. America is in crisis. We have some differences between us, but we agree that this president’s got to go. This president is a nice guy. He doesn’t have a clue how to get this country working again."

I have to say, I'm a little confused by this. Do Mormons just not know how to snipe at people? Is this another gap in the LDS educational system, along with evolution and archaelogy?

Rick Perry: Charismatic, even while saying crazy things. Kind of a scary combination. Reminds me quite a bit of George W. Bush with Josh Brolin's face (and I'm saying that as someone who never saw W.). I'm calling the nomination now-- I think Perry's it, with Romney as VP. It's going to be hilarious. Quotes:

you can secure the border, but it requires a commitment of the federal government of putting those boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air. 

We think predator drones could be flown, that real-time information coming down to the local and the state and the federal law enforcement. And you can secure the border. And at that particular point in time, then you can have an intellectually appropriate discussion about immigration reform.

So, we can't have a conversation about immigration reform until we've got predator drones buzzing over Texas. Way to push that issue back a few decades.

"The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at — at — at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet, to me, is just — is nonsense. I mean, it — I mean — and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell. 

But the fact is, to put America’s economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics and I will suggest to you is not necessarily good science. Find out what the science truly is before you start putting the American economy in jeopardy."

So... you refuse to make any change in industry or business until we "find out what the science is"... while at the same time brushing aside scientific consensus on the grounds that scientists have been wrong about stuff before. Way to show some intellectual objectivity there, Governor. We can clearly tell you're just dying to get to the bottom of this great scientific mystery.

Also, double points for saying this while having recently made giant cuts to your education budget. Exactly where are we going to get these scientists to decide these questions? Or are you just betting on the fact that killing the planet will make you rich before it makes you dead?

Bonus- Brian Williams & John Harris: trying way too hard to play "gotcha" games. Sorry guys, it just makes you look like dipshits. Quotes:

"Tell us which one of these people are saying crazy or inane things." 

"You yourself have said the party is in danger of becoming anti- science. Who on this stage is anti-science?" 

"Just recently in New Hampshire, you said that weekly and even daily scientists are coming forward to question the idea that human activity is behind climate change. Which scientists have you found most credible on this subject?"

Guys, it stopped being cute after the first time. No one's going to answer, they don't even bother to respond or get flustered, so all you're doing is wasting time and looking like twits. That's supposed to be the candidates' job.

Don't be so not hard on yourself

In the last few days since the news that the U.S. got bin Laden, reactions have been interesting to watch. Personally, I see it as another small "personal history" moment. As a young person who came of age in the 90s and aughts, there weren't too many events that seemed to make it onto the national consciousness that I was aware of (the time I found out about the collapse of the USSR three years late is a story for another time).

The Americans, by and large, saw the take-down, dubbed "Operation Geronimo" (an insult to the real Geronimo, IMO) as a pretty solid victory. The operation was potentially a risky move that could have blown up in Obama's face, but as it happened to fortunately unfold, a well-executed victory.

But after every victory, some people like to reflect. As we say in second grade, "What could we do better?"

According to Pakistani officials, not a damn thing:

The ISI official told the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones in Islamabad that the compound in Abbottabad, just 100km (62 miles) from the capital, was raided when under construction in 2003. 

It was believed an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there. 

But since then, "the compound was not on our radar, it is an embarrassment for the ISI", the official said. "We're good, but we're not God."

Thanks for clearing that up. Incidentally, I'm not sure you're all that "good," either. That's not to say you aren't doing some things well, but talk about letting yourself off the hook. "Don't feel bad, guys. We just got word- we're not God. Consider this one a freebie."

He added: "This one failure should not make us look totally incompetent. Look at our track record. For the last 10 years, we have captured Taliban and al-Qaeda in their hundreds - more than any other countries put together."

Defensive much? I know Pakistan has to walk a thin line when it comes to helping the US without alienating its native population, but come on, guys. Incidentally, I'm not sure you get to give yourself such a giant pat on the back for "catching more Taliban & Al Qaeda than anyone else" when your country is used-- and perceived-- as ground zero/safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda training. That's like bragging that your town has the highest pedophile conviction rate in the state. It's not a bad thing, but it may also mean that your town has too many damn pedophiles.

President Asif Ali Zardari admitted Bin Laden "was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be". 

But he denied the killing suggested Pakistan was failing in its efforts to tackle terrorism. 

Mr Zardari said Pakistan had "never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media".

Red herring, Mr. President. Pakistan isn't a hotbed of fanaticism, but it isn't full of gumdrops and teddy bears, either. While neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban have Pakistani approval levels anywhere near 2008 levels (25% and 27%) these days, (18% and 15% in 2010), those numbers are up from 2009. So clearly there is a segment of the population that needs to be paid attention to, especially if they're the ones with the guns, bombs, what have you.

"Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan's war as it is America's."

I agree. You might want to talk to that 18% of Pakistanis that don't.

Mr Brennan had said it was "inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system" in Pakistan.

Come on, Mr. Brennan! Didn't you just listen to the President? All Pakistanis hate Al Qaeda. There must be another explanation. Maybe the house was built by magical Al Qaeda elves, using magical elf concrete. Or, you know, those evil Jihadist day laborers from El Salvador. There's nothing they won't do for a quick rupee.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir tried to draw a line under the matter, saying: "Who did what is beside the point... This issue of Osama Bin Laden is history."

Nice attempt at a brush-off. "Don't mind our screw-up, the important thing is that he's gone. Why are we even talking about this guy? He hasn't been relevant in like, sixteen hours. Osama who?"

After reading this quote for the eighth-hundredth time and making sure I hadn't suffered some sort of aneurysm from the cognitive dissonance, I must confess to some protracted writer's block. What would be the best comparison to make here? It was truly an epic struggle. (Not quite as big a struggle as Pakistan's rhetorical back-flips, but pretty close.)

I considered going historical (Allies sticking Napoleon on Elba, where he promptly ran away, or the US funding mujehadin in Afghanistan who later shot them in the ass), or even look to ancient myth (Pandora and her dumb-ass box, Eve and her apple/pomegranate/what-have-you).

But no. I decided that in order to show just how absolutely ridiculous the Pakistanis are being, I had to go big.

So here we go: Pakistan, you're like the bozo engineer in Atomic Train or Unstoppable who accidentally unleashes a runaway death train carrying killer chemicals which could kill everybody but magically avoid so at the last minute. AND THEN BRAGS ABOUT IT.

"Look, the important thing is the train got there, ok? Who cares who forgot to make sure they were at the controls of what?"

Seriously, Pakistan. If you can't think of anything particularly face-saving to say, then just stay quiet on this one. Right now, you're not doing yourself any favors.

The Meaning of Things

Despite the wide political gulf between my would-be hippy father Abbot Yid and his more McCain- (or Goldwater)-esque brothers, Milt and Moe, one thing that everyone agreed on the last time politics were discussed was that they can't stand Sarah Palin.

In discussing her ridiculous use of the "blood libel" to complain about the media attacking her for attacking people who were then physically attacked, Rabbi Andy Bachman illustrates some of the reasons why:

Sarah Palin is smart; but not particularly deep or capable of rendering historical terms with accuracy or nuance.  She is passionately sanctimonious and deeply committed to her Evangelical Christian faith, promising to care for America "with a servant's heart" while at the same time deeply isolated by a bubble of advisers who seem to aid her plotting machinations with a singularity of purpose that is impressively focused, if only on herself.  And typical of the pathological narcissism that runs through the veins of so many celebrities in our country, she can rarely have the humility to know the difference between moral scrutiny and self-reflection and that pernicious expression of victimhood and martyrdom that she does so well.  The act of true political bravery she pretends to have by selling her image was another missed opportunity.  "You know, all of us say or represent ideas irresponsibly sometimes; and I will admit that targeting political opponents with the graphic representation of the cross-hairs of a gun was a bad idea."  We know she didn't pull the trigger; but what would have been so wrong about taking responsibility for an overly partisan political climate?  We are all responsible.

...I don't think she hates Jews; I think she admires us.  I don't think she hates Israel; I think she admires it.  So when she uses the term "blood-libel," in her own weird way, she's actually identifying with us.  Guilt by association!

...Ironically, both Pain and Dershowitz are guilty--not of blood libel but of an ahistorical hubris and a politically self-righteous arrogance that only further debases our already noisy civil discourse.  The notion that we have a "victim" in a multi-millionaire celebrity, whose every opinion is carefully crafted and broadcast throughout the world, who is in the rarest of positions to serve her nation in higher office, is one of the great absurdities of the day.

I think some of Rabbi Bachman's observations are spot on. However there are a few areas where we differ: I wouldn't describe Palin as smart but rather extremely ambitious. Obviously it takes some intelligence to be able to properly position yourself within the political system and to play the media and your base against each other so that in any discussion, your name keeps coming up, but I see that as being more about having good marketing instincts rather than any particularly deep thoughtfulness or intellectual curiosity.

Indeed, everything about the public Palin seems to exude contempt for those who think, for those who aren't always sure of things, for those who question and doubt-- much less research-- before they form an opinion. Palin is all about the (seemingly) quick answers, the immediate, folksy wisdom about what to do in every situation, an always friendly, bubbly confidence. A beauty queen with a shot-gun. What to do about creationism and evolution? Teach them both. Or don't, whatever. What about the tricky ethical issues of abortion in cases of rape and incest? "Choose life."  What we do about Afghanistan? "We can win." Counseling about end-of-life choices and living wills become "Death Panels." Palin isn't a thinker or a doer, she's a sloganeer in search of a cause to make posters for.

The problem is that Palin's rhetoric about how great or tough or knowledgeable she is never seems to match what she's capable of delivering. Palin spends lots of time pretending she knows what she's talking about, and her ego is such that regardless of how many times it's shown she's wrong, she can never acknowledge it. Instead everything is a smear, an attack, a blood libel. Because there's no substance to her positions, there's no room for discussing the nuances of disagreement.

Palin is always on the attack, whether she has someone or something in particular to go after or not. And this is really where, in my view, her anti-intellectualism comes out. When Palin is attacking something, details stop mattering. Palin exemplifies the new media politics, which uses the short bursts of Twitter over in person, sometimes drawn out discussions of, say, an in-person debate. Palin has done an excellent job of capitalizing off a political and cultural atmosphere in which people's attention span is limited to 180 characters.

This is what gets under my skin about her. At the end of the day, I don't think most politicians are so different from Palin. I think lots of them are ambitious, wishy-washy, intellectually lazy, and probably more than a little hypocritical. But when she wraps herself in the mantle of a would-be Founding Mother-- and when she uses her position as one of the top figures in the increasingly loud (but unfocused) Tea Party-- to continue describing a vision of an America of good guys and bad guys, patriots and traitors, authentic heartland-ers and clueless coastal elitists, she is demonstrating that she doesn't care about the truth. She is saying that truth, facts, and details don't matter. That history doesn't matter, that nuance and context don't matter. In Palin's worldview, the important thing is what side you're on, not the nitty-gritty of what you say, do, or believe. That everything is black and white, and that since she's a good guy, you had better make sure you're one, too. For Palin, it truly doesn't matter what "blood libel" means, because Palin and the Jews are on the same side. The true meaning of words don't matter, they're just weapons to be used. Palin's approach to knowledge is purely utilitarian.

With such a background, how can you even be surprised at anything that comes out of Palin's mouth? So, no, I can't be as charitable as Rabbi Bachman. To me, Sarah Palin isn't wrong. She's a jackass.

I'd like to say that I look forward to Palin disappearing from the political scene, but honestly, I think she's more a sign of the times. The sad thing is that as long as people like Palin are defended by equally complacent hacks like Buchanan, Boteach and Dershowitz who care more about getting noticed and selling books than examining whether this further trend of downplaying details in favor of promoting absurd rhetoric is good for the political discourse, I think we'll be seeing a lot more Palins in the future.

There's Bad Taste, Then There's Obscene

Am I alone on this? Prime Minister Netanyahu went to a memorial service for the 40-plus people killed in a horrible fire last month in Israel. Speaking to the victims' families, he said this:

“They left from here on the Carmel, soaring to the heavens on a chariot of fire”

Uh, Bibi? Maybe you think you're being poetic or something, but you really can't mention "chariot of fire" when a bunch of the victims died in a burning bus. Just like you wouldn't tell the widow of a man lost at sea that "Joe's finally found a safe harbor", or console the family of someone who died of cardiac arrest that "Bob was the heart and soul of the company."

This is the textbook definition of being a dick.

Am I being oversensitive, readers? Or is Bibi suffering from rhetorical Asperger's?

Hat-tip to Failed Messiah.