When no single candidate excites you, what do you get? Bill de Blasio is what you get.
About 80 percent of New York City’s eligible voters stayed home during the last mayoral elections, leaving the town wide open for a man already dubbed Gotham’s worst mayor in history, or as The New York Post calls him, and I quote so don’t blame me – calls him “Mayor Putz.”
Who’s even talking about New York? Not me. I’m talking about voters in America and in Israel who’ve thrown in the towel.
In Israel the only choice is Benjamin Netanyahu, not only because he’s a good guy, but mostly – have you seen the other guy?
In Israel the only choice is Benjamin Netanyahu, not only because he’s a good guy, but mostly – have you seen the other guy?
That would be Yizchak Herzog. Together with appeasement pal Tzipi Livni, Herzog is running a campaign based on the rallying cry of retreat.
When did retreat become a nation’s desirable destiny? I can’t think of any candidate anywhere stumping happily for surrender – except in Israel, where, at least in Tel Aviv, thousands gathered in support of Herzog/Livni, in other words, for moving the country backwards.
(Yes, I know. When the wartime shofar blows, Tel Aviv rushes to the front as courageously as the rest of the nation.)
Give the Arabs everything they want and you’ll be happy, goes the argument from the Labor Left.
Think small; I guess that’s the new creed among politicians vying for our love. No grand vision, not from today’s men and women who want our votes.
Think small. Lie Big.
But in America, it’s the same deal. We have nobody, nobody that excites us when it comes to leadership. Maybe it’s just me.
I’m a Child of the 60's. I remember a politician who gave us a dream. Dreams don’t have to come true, but humans, we need something to keep us going, a grand design that promises us a future that will be better for ourselves and for our kids. Just thinking about it is enough.
Just give us a chance. That’s all we ask.
We cannot sustain ourselves with malaise, a concept that suffocates the spirit with the insistence that things will always be the same, or maybe even worse.
JKF promised us a New Frontier, a reinvigorated America, and we responded with a Space Program that got us to the moon.
Our generation walked a head taller because we were given a task. These few words set us on the path to greatness: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” More here. We have nothing like that from this generation, neither in America nor in Israel.
Here in America, frankly, I don’t know what the hell we’ve got. Our politicians are so shallow or so corrupt that all we can do is shrug. There’s no choice but to say, what’s the difference? Hillary Clinton, for example, is both. She is both shallow and corrupt, but out of a population of 320 million, this is the best the Democrats have to offer. The GOP? Who can tell one from another?
From the men and women who run our country today, practically every word is a maneuver around the truth, a lie, and once again, we shrug.
On Hillary’s email scandal, even her most loyal supporters, like James Carville, can only can only submit: Yes, she’s corrupt. So what? (My interpretation.)
Where are the best…where are the brightest…nowhere to be found running for office.
The Democrats have no Kennedy and the Republicans have no Reagan and Israel, outside of Bibi perhaps, has no man of vision.
I say “perhaps” because here too, what’s the plan? What’s the dream? As Jews, it’s the dream that’s sustained us over the centuries. Moses’ dream was so strong that, for the love of his people, Israel, he said, “Okay, Dear Lord, if you destroy this people for being so stiff-necked, destroy me too. Erase me from your Book.” Wow!
We could use some of that stiff-neckedness today, instead of turning pansy. If not Moses, or David, we could use a Herzl.
Imagine any of them campaigning on platforms of retreat and slogans of surrender. Goodness, Herzl was full of vigor and statesmanship even without a state.
He had a dream and because of that dream he was “fit to meet with kings” and to gather millions to the cause of Zion.
Forty years in the desert we trekked in pursuit of a promise, to follow a dream. Did it pay off? You bet!
This leads me to quote this famous extract from the novel “IndecentProposal.” The PR director of a major casino is explaining why millions turn to gambling: “We give them the dream. We all feel that we’ve been cheated by life. Nobody is happy with what he’s got. That’s why they flock here by the millions, in pursuit of something better. That’s the human cry. We want. We need – something better, please.”
Without a dream, no way to run a life, no way to run a country.
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com
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