News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Is it Noonan or is it Not?
by Barry Friedman
Eyes Closed Shut
I try--and it’s so hard, so, so hard in fact--to say this with my eyes open (in fact to make any point on Sunday morning talk shows with them open) but the country is not being held hostage by Republicans any more than Reagan held me against my will, hands over my head, topless, and chained to a pipe in the cellar.
Though I would have gone without a struggle.
I digress.
But Reagan knew when to dismount his stallion and talk to those with the beads and the blankets and the exotic teas. And what a sight that was, one stallion astride another, both ending where the other began. He could talk to the commoners, the people, those not close to the revolution, like the overwhelming majority of you, who only knew of it from what I told you in my marvelous book. But this president doesn’t ride like Reagan, doesn’t gallop, doesn’t push his horse, doesn’t stroke his mare where mares like to be stroked, which is high, where the shoulders meet the neck. We Americans want to be stroked, yearn for it, in fact. I want to be stroked--and not just on the neck. My eyes, alas, must stay closed when I remember the strokings of yesteryear, otherwise I’d feel myself blush, hear myself squeak.
But. We must negotiate. Talk, converse, have at it. And we must have it with an open heart, even if our eyes can only manage a squint or do really weird things. Presidents must--they must, they must, oh, how they must negotiate even with--and I’ll almost open an eye when I say this--Republicans, even though they have not been forthcoming or honest or particularly sane or, worst of all, Reagan-like. My party--and there’s a heaviness in my breast (both of them, actually, when last I felt)--besmirched America. It is true. I grieve over the myopia, not to mention their nearsightedness. They deserve besmirching back, but they must be reckoned with (Oh, how RR loved to talk like a cowboy.) This president, though, who listens to Gloria Estefan and not the voices of the cowboy poets, reckons no one except the masses, some washed, some not. He talks of those hurt by the shutdown, but does he speak to them? You see the difference, don’t you? (I can’t tell if you do because my eyes are closed).
One more thing, my good friend, Paul Krugman is celebrating Hanukkah early this year and, unlike many of my Christian brothers and sisters, I don’t take that personally that it’s over Thanksgiving. America is a big enough country to handle both.
And herewith is the lesson, a connection, a … a …--how do I say this?--a thing that can be learned from those Jews holed up in that temple. Remember, Judas Maccabee never negotiated for more oil, though he should have. He had enough for eight days. When the oil ran out, as the economists and soothsayers knew it would, the Jewish people were in default. Why didn’t he sit down with the Assyrians and, say, “Let’s horse trade. I’ll give you--I don’t know--four Jews and you give me fresh horses and lanterns”?
Was it pride, did he not want to set a precedent because he knew that the Babylonians would use it against Jews in the future?
It is a question that has perplexed me to this day.
The Assyrians are Ted Cruz; Maccabee is Obama.
Don’t count out the Canadian who will be king. Remember, alas, the Assyrians won eventually, even though we like the Jews better--at least I do.
My point.
Paul is Jewish; I am not. I know Jews. I like them. Reagan liked them. Hollywood is run by them--always has been--and Reagan never lost a day’s work. This man could get along with Jews. Can this president? Would Alinsky have called him khaver, amigo, friend?
So where, oh where, is comity? Can Biden and Bridenstine sit and have a beer?
(Alliteration makes me gay)
Anyway, we can light candles; we can pass the cranberry. We can thank God, we can thank whomever it is Jews thank.
We can open the government; we can pay our debts.
We can eat turkey; we can eat latkes.
It is America. It is a place that makes my eyes, which are still closed, leak.