Newsreels

Pictorial essays of any possible consequences of hard-fought policy decisions are never hard to find. I’m thinking of the film, “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu“ to which we soon may be referring as Obamacare begins to kick in. Or, of concentration camp footage when we begin to really think about our latest (non)stance regarding Israel and Iran.

Been listening to Malcolm these past few nights. He’s right on target about a lot of things. If anything, he may be understating it. Israel has always counted on the support of the U.S. In fact, she has felt herself so sure of America’s continued support, she has hardly blinked an eye when most of the ‘Quartet’ decided to turn their backs. Even in America itself, she has felt herself so invincible as to think nothing of embracing her enemies and mocking her friends. It was all such great fun! Rahm Emanuel. What a wonderful Jewish boy! they said. He’s a little screwed up, but he’s bound to learn. After all, he was smart enough to teach that Bush dolt a lesson or two.

I don’t blame the Diaspora. We fell for it too. Obama was the clean, nice-looking black guy. We elected him to prove something to ourselves - something intangible, but nevertheless vexing. Our liberal bent demanded that we give him a shot. How could it hurt? America would always be America. If things go wrong, we can always turn it around. What we didn’t count on was his hatred for us - especially for our most annoying tendency of all: being so damn condescending.

We never really imagined that he was the messiah. We just wanted to throw him a bone, poor boy. We just wanted to see how the old squawk box would look with a different nameplate. We imagined we were in the Philippines at an electronics store; that we had just picked out our new flat screen TV; and when we were getting ready to pay, the clerk asked us - almost as an afterthought - which logo we wanted him to stick at the bottom. “What are the choices?” we asked. He showed us. “African-American,” we said. At least we got the first part right.

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