If you’re trying to express a complex idea requiring specific examples to describe a precise condition, you are happy to see a couple of examples materialize before your eyes during one and the same week, and see them line up like stars to make life easy for you. This is what happened during the week that the Democratic convention chose Barack Obama to be their nominee for the presidency of the United States of America.
The first example was the appearance of Mona Charen’s article on August 27, 2008 in the National Review Online under the title: "This Historic Candidacy," and the subtitle: "And my reservations about the politics and worldview of this candidate."
When you read the article you are prompted to ask the question: "Where is the beef?" You look closely and see that Charen begins by explaining what motivated her to write the piece. She says it was the sight of Juan Williams’ almost tearful reaction to Michelle Obama’s address to the Democratic convention. Says Charen: "He shook his head in amazement that an African-American woman was in the position she was."
Charen says that she too would have loved the spectacle but only if Michelle Obama was the woman she said she was on that night. However, Michelle is not that woman says Mona because … well, because what? Mona offers nothing that is deep or insightful. She cites a 1985 thesis written by Michelle Obama in which the latter referred to American Blacks and other students from the Third World in the same sentence. This being the case says Mona, Michelle should still feel alienated and not pretend to be an American patriot.
Wow! Did you get this dear reader? What a genius must be this Mona Charen who can decipher the current worldview of someone whose wife saw at some point in her student life, a parallel between the condition of some American Blacks and the condition of some Third World societies.
How many more Americans and how many more citizens of Planet Earth has Mona Charen deceived herself into believing she understands as well as this? Is that what she writes about all the time?
Mona dear, you should sit with Nelson Mandela if he will not mind spending time talking to you. Here is a man who spent a good part of his life in jail for disliking what went on in his country to the point of doing something that the nation of South Africa said was a criminal act. But then Mandela rose to become president of that very same nation; and South Africa did not even enslave its citizens as did America.
Please explain, Mona dear, was Mandela a patriot all along or did he become one after he was elected President of South Africa? What does your genius decipher in the history of that nation? Please answer, Mona dear because the same history is being repeated with other African, Asian and South American personalities who diagnose the ills of their system of governance then march on to power and change the system. The world needs to know how to deal with these people and the world counts on you to give it guidance, Mona dearest of all.
So much for the first example. As to the second, it was the appearance two days later, on August 29, 2008 of Charles Krauthammer’s piece in the same publication under the title: "Barack Obama: International Man of Mystery," and the subtitle: "The lack of personal testimonials at the DNC coronation must leave Democrats uneasy.
When you contrast Krauthammer’s piece with that of Charen, you realize that the first, who studied psychiatry, has mastered a way of presenting his case that is vastly superior to the way of the second who studied law. The trouble with Krauthammer, however, is that he is caught in a manner of doing things that was once a potent formula but has now lost its vigor because of overuse. Let me explain.
Those who defend the Zionist causes used to be able to freeze the argument of their opponent and advance their own by pulling a trick out of their hat. It was always the same old trick pulled out of the same old hat. For example, if you’re talking about Syria, they would say they wish there was a magnanimous Sadat in Syria who would go to Jerusalem and address the Israeli Parliament. If you’re talking about Palestine, they would say they wish there was a pacifist Mahatma Ghandi in Palestine who would not grab a stone and throw it at an Israeli tank that is in the process of demolishing his or her home.
Krauthammer pulled that same trick in his current piece. He writes about the manner in which John Kerry was introduced to his convention four years ago. Things were not done the same way with Obama, says Krauthammer, therefore the process was not as valid in his eyes. Instead, he says he would have loved to see: "an honor guard … surround him [Obama] on the podium attesting to his character and readiness to lead."
No, it won’t work this time, Charles, because people know that every convention is different from every other convention even if you assert: "Such personal testimonials are the norm." Besides, if this is true then the trick has now become repetitive which renders it stale and useless in the eyes of many.
Moreover, I had the opportunity in my long life to hire people, mostly teachers, for my own school when I had one or for someone else’s school when I worked for someone else. I learned that the best way to treat the letters of recommendation accompanying an application for a job was to ignore them.
I did so because I never expected to see a letter that listed the shortcomings of its bearer, and when you hire people you need to know their weaknesses so as to take the necessary remedial action at the outset. Likewise, someone on the podium giving testimonial on behalf of a candidate will always emphasize if not exaggerate the virtues of the candidate but will never expose their weaknesses.
Another thing I learned in life is never to try and predict how a student will progress in school based on my first impression of him or her. And I never wanted to predict how the student will do at work after graduation because experience taught me that in all likelihood I was going to be wrong. Likewise, one speech at a convention is no way to have us predict what kind of president a candidate will turn out to be.
I am certain Krauthammer knows all these things. So then what is the real story behind the making of those opinions? Well, neither he nor Mona Charen want to see Barack Obama at the helm of the United States government for a reason that can no longer be brushed aside. These two have defended the cause of Israel and those of the Jewish Establishment forever. Together, along with a few other opinion makers, they have judged potential leaders not by their talent or abilities but by the intensity of their love for Israel and the other Jewish causes.
In that quest, Mona Charen, Charles Krauthammer and company concoct on the spot a convenient argument based on truth, falsehood or a combination of both to support or to attack every person that seeks a high office. Krauthammer does it intelligently by constructing a strong and deep argument; Charen does it not so intelligently by constructing a weak and shallow argument.
But why the difference between these two authors? First, we must understand that the causes they defend are indefensible. Thus, using logic and legal arguments, Mona Charen has no prayer at making a good case. Krauthammer, on the other hand, makes a seemingly better case because he has mastered the skill to be insidious and he often uses reverse psychology to make his point.
To better understand and to accurately assess the work of these two, you must see them as part of a hate machine whose sole purpose is to discredit or to destroy those who seek high office and are not diehard lovers of Israel and the Jewish causes. Like bookends, they sit at the extremities of the effectiveness spectrum while everyone else that is part of the same machine sits somewhere between the two of them.
Barack Obama has not completely done what they expect of him and, like a monkey on his back, they will stay there and they will clobber him until he knuckles under or he gets knocked off. Will Barack Obama prove to be a third alternative who will then be regarded as the miracle that saved America from itself?
In its own slow moving and merry way time will tell this story one chapter at a time as the world watches the unfolding story.