election – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #165 (1/17/2021): FREE SPEECH

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(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 165th Rabbinical Reflection aired Jan. 16, 2021 as part of the Dave’s Gone By show. watch video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y0DFpad8eto).

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 17th, 2021.

Can we speak freely? No, I mean, can we speak, freely? I don’t like the “Stop the Steal” mishegoss any more than you do, and I think the nudniks who stormed the Capitol building deserve the strongest punishment. Like fines, imprisonment, or being trapped in an elevator with Jeanine Pirro in your left ear and Nancy Grace in your right. And they’re both using megaphones. And guess what? They’re angry.

But back to the point: we’ve got a paranoid President who is circling the drain because he’s terrified of being called the one thing he is–at least in terms of the 2020 election–a Loser. Not with Israel and the Middle East; he’s a winner there. Not with Wall Street and big business; he’s a Superman there. And, up till March of last year, not with the economy, which had low unemployment, tons of job growth, and a gung-ho attitude.

But COVID knocked him down, as it did 350,000 of his countrymen. Trump’s rash pronouncements and veiled racial signaling appealed to America’s baser instincts, so although 75 million people voted for him, 80 million didn’t. He lost. Deal with it. I wish he would. I wish his Confederate flag-waving acolytes would. I wish the folks on QAnon would get a Clue-Anon.

However, just before the riots, the President gave a speech where he dubbed the elections fraudulent, the news fake, and the elections rigged by Big Tech. He called on Congress to recount everything, and he said, and I quote, “I know that everyone will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” unquote. He also praised the size of the crowd–he does love a big crowd–and urged them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. As a protest. As a way for those who legitimately felt the election was stolen to make their voices heard.

For this, Donald Trump was again impeached. For spinning a false narrative, yes, about the election, but moreover for inciting the crowd to riot. “Something is wrong here, really wrong,” he said, “and we fight. We fight like hell, because if you don’t, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” You know what that’s called? Rhetoric. Not insurrection, not incitement to anarchy. It’s a politician telling his believers not to give up hope and to channel their rage into action. If some followers in buffalo skins and football-fan camouflage took that to mean storm the government, break stuff and take stuff, that’s on them. At the very least it’s trespassing; at most it’s sedition.

The Democrats are accusing the President of having a signed First Sedition. True, he wound the bozos up, but he didn’t set them loose, any more than the makers of Cabbage Patch dolls doing TV commercials telling parents “buy these horrible things for your even-more-horrible children,” caused riots in Kmart.

But pushing past impeachment and trying to remove Donald Trump from office–which will happen two weeks after he’s already been removed from office–my problem is with the censoring of free speech. President Trump has been banned, permanently, from Twitter. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram have deleted him for however long they choose, and YouTube has pulled his channel down. Far more worrisome, they’re doing the same for all his nutty followers who now have no place to share their cries of “fraud!” and “conspiracy!” Google, Apple, and Amazon have all removed the social-media site Parler, because too many kooks were spoiling the broth.

Now, these are private companies–sort of–so their CEOs have the right to monitor everything that goes on them. If you own a restaurant, you can’t discriminate against your customers based on race or gender, but you can still demand, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” I’ve thrown people out of my synagogue for wearing dirty tallises. Well, they weren’t wearing anything underneath them, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is we are on a very slippery slope when our biggest purveyors of public palaver start telling us, “Well, you’re allowed to post hopeful things about Joe Biden’s inauguration, but you can’t write anything questioning the legitimacy of his victory.” “You’re allowed to condemn the violent idiots rioting in Nancy Pelosi’s office, but don’t you dare encourage the peaceful idiots to keep marching two blocks away.”

When I was a little Rabbi, a Rabbette, I was taught three things you couldn’t do: yell fire in a crowded shul, slander someone, or be so obscene that a reasonable person would go, “dude, I’m as kinky as the next fetishist, that’s messed up.” But no law says you can’t lie. That’s not even one of the Ten Commandments. Wait, let me make sure (thinks and counts), nope. False witness is different. And there’s certainly nothing in there about not sharing things that you actually believe are true–even if there’s overwhelming evidence they’re false.

So what happens when you censor folks on the fringe? You make them angrier, you drive them deeper underground, and now it gets harder to track them to make sure they don’t escalate from angry TikTok videos to kidnapping Ilhan Omar. You also cause everyone else to self-censor. “Hmm, maybe I better not post this because they’ll just take it down anyway. Maybe I better not think this, because then I’ll waste time posting it, because they’re just gonna take it down anyway.”

I am of the mind that you say what you have to say, and if I hate it, I get to say what I have to say back at you, louder. The problem in 1925 was not that Hitler published Mein Kampf; it’s that not enough people read it and went, “ooh, this guy’s bonkers and maybe dangerous.” The problem is not that right-wing Republicans are posting that the elections were a fraud; it’s that they believe it and won’t be de-convinced no matter the proof. Still, prohibiting them from non-violent, non-slanderous, non-obscene communication is non-okay.

Big Brother is already watching us from every stop light, website, Smart TV, closed-circuit camera, and GPS system. You can’t sneeze without someone in the CIA muttering gezundheit. Must we have social-media platforms that restrict content based on alternative narratives? Do we really want to side with Cardinal Maculani over Galileo? With Anthony Comstock over James Joyce? With Ayatollah Khomeini over Salman Rushdie?

In my version of reality, Donald Trump was an okay president who made just enough poor decisions to lose the election. In your version of reality (points), Donald Trump was a terrible president who should have been impeached before he was elected. Or in your version of reality (points elsewhere), Donald Trump was a great president who got cheated out of a second term. Can’t we all just not get along? Tolerating stupidity is one of the great virtues of our nation. That and cream soda. What, you disagree? That’s your right.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

Dave’s Gone By #771 (11/7/2020): SAPOZITORY

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Here is the 771st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning Nov. 7, 2020. More info: davesgoneby.com.

Guests: musicologist Henry Sapoznik, theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward, Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews musician and musicologist Henry Sapoznik; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Goodrich, CO); Wretched Pun of Destiny (election); Today/Yesterday (Nov. 7 trivia quiz w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward

Historic Note: During the Today/Yesterday segment, news came down that Joseph Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (writing challenge)
00:36:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:05:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Henry Sapoznik
02:04:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (Nov. 7 w/ Henry Sapoznik, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, David Sheward
03:21:30 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #83 (election)
03:24:30 Friends of the Daverhood
03:29:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Goodrich)
03:32:30 DAVE GOES OFF (voting)
03:48:30 DAVE GOES OUT

Nov. 7, 2020 playlist: “Chicken” (01:04:30; Henry Sapoznik). “Yidele Farlier Nit Dein Hoffnung” (01:50:30; Thomas LaRue).

Dave’s Gone By #580 (11/5/2016): COKEN DAGGER

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Here is the 580th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Nov. 5, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: comedian Jen Coken, Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews life coach Jen Coken; Inside Broadway; Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (cutting edge); Saturday Segues (In the News, Joni Mitchell); Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (electile dysfunction); Dave Goes Off on the Elections; Greeley Crimes & Old Times.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Fetty Wap and the Illuminati, Dylan’s Nobel)
00:16:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
00:38:00 Sponsors
00:42:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Joni Mitchell
01:05:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Jen Coken
01:45:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news, reviews (Heisenberg, Falsettos), & Tammy Grimes)
02:28:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Cutting Edge)
02:46:30 Friends
02:54:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #141 (Electile Dysfunction)
03:06:00 DAVE GOES OFF – The Election
03:30:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News
04:02:00 Weather
04:04:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Nov. 5, 2016 Playlist: “The Crazy Cries of Love” (00:45:30) & “Refuge of the Roads” ({Travelogue version} 00:53:00; Joni Mitchell). “Ladies of the Canyon” (00:49:00; Annie Lennox). “Be-u-ti-ful People of Denver” (The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1960 Broadway cast w/ Tammy Grimes). “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” ({Take 13} 02:34:00), “Like a Rolling Stone” ({Take 1, remake} 02:38:30) & “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” ({Take 2} 02:40:00; Bob Dylan). “God & the FBI” (03:31:30; Janis Ian). “Election Day” (Shuffle Along 1921 cast). “Philadelphia” (03:39:00; Peter Gabriel). “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” (03:42:30; Steve Goodman). “The Future is Now” (04:10:00; Neil Dick).

(pictured: Jen Coken and her book, Donald n’ Hillary, Joni Mitchell with friends, Dylan’s Cutting Edge bootleg series)

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #141 (11/6/2016): ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #141 (11/6/16): Electile Dysfunction

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Aired Nov. 5, 2016 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cX5zCpfhuk&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 6, 2016.

Well, my friends, this is it. In three days, we drag ourselves to the local junior high school, sign our names in a guest book, hold our collective noses, and pull the lever to choose which nightmare we wish to endure for the next four years.

On one side, we have Hillary Clinton: experienced, resilient, hardworking, honest as the day is long. At the South Pole. If you ask this woman, “what color is the sky?”, her answer’s gonna be, “Well, depending on the time of day and the light refracting away from various planets, we could be somewhere in the azure-like spectrum. But until I’ve done more research, I have to reserve comment on that.” Hillary Clinton gets a memo with a giant “C” on it for “Classified,” and she thinks the “C” stands for, “Come, put this on your home computer — where you haven’t updated Norton Utilities in three years.”

And two-faced? This woman has more faces than Mount Rushmore in a hall of mirrors. She tells rich fatcats she’s for open borders, but then she tells middle-class Democrats she’s for protecting trade. She bashes her opponent as a sexist pig but persecutes any woman who humped her husband. Which is a full-time job, by the way. Hillary promises to get tough on America’s enemies, but when was Secretary of State, the Middle East turned into Terrorist Disneyland. Heck, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t even be the nominee if Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her party apparatchiks didn’t treat Bernie Sanders like a naughty puppy who was soiling the carpet by lifting his leg to the far left.

For all his faults, people still love Hillary’s husband, Bill. He’s got the twinkle, he’s got the polish; he’s got another box of cigars at the ready. But that popular love just doesn’t transfer to Mrs. Clinton, who’s been in the political game too long to ever be a real person again. Even people who don’t dislike her understand that if she’s elected, the country will stay the same. The economy will still grow at a pace that makes photosynthesis look like the Indy 500. ObamaCare will put more people in hospitals . . . with heart attacks after they see their premiums. And America will still lag behind the rest of the world in everything except obesity and unwatchable cable TV channels.

And yet, of the two candidates running for the two major political parties, Hillary Clinton is the better choice. I know that’s like saying a bowl of chocolate-covered horse radish is preferable to a dish of month-old sheep vomit, but if you had to pick, you go with the maror over the moron. No question, Donald Trump is a wildly successful businessman. He’s successful, and he’s wild. I like that he has balls, but then again, what else do you shoot with a loose cannon?

Now, I don’t hold against Donald Trump that he’s gone bankrupt a couple of times. It takes a savvy entrepreneur to pick yourself up, dust yourself up, pay your creditors two cents on the dollar, and start all over again. And I don’t mind that he hasn’t paid any taxes since the Hoover administration. If I could find a legal way not to pay sales tax every time I bought a pastrami sandwich, I’d be owning Trump Hotel. Which would be especially ironic since neither of us owns it. For all his building development, Donald Trump does not own most of the buildings he has his name on. But I don’t hold that against him, either. After all, if my last name were Parkinson, would I want my name on a disease?

What I do begrudge The Donald are his deals with the devil. When The Orange One first announced his candidacy, his whole shpiel was about being an outsider. He wasn’t a lifelong politician and therefore took no money and owed no favors. That’s tremendously appealing, especially when you’re also plain-speaking, pro-Israel, and promising to play by your own rules. Had Mr. Trump gone with a third party or created his own party—and I don’t mean the kind of party where he offers a supermodel $10,000 to polish his cornerstone—I mean Ross Perot-ing it. Saying “shtup you” to the Pelosis and the Paul Ryans, because he could. Between his bank account and grass-roots support among the kind of white people who think Canadians are as exotic as foreigners should be allowed to get, Donald Trump could have funded a truly “outside” campaign.

Instead, he gets in bed with the elephants. The same people who gave us eight years of George W. Bush, not to mention Fox News, Richard Nixon, Sarah Palin, Strom Thurmond, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. So the Republicans think they can corral Trump, Trump thinks he can streamroll the G.O.P., and I think they should both go down in flames. Trump wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans? Who’s gonna pick my etrogs for Sukkos? He’s gonna give tax credits to the ultra-wealthy so their money will trickle down? Wanna bet it trickles down into their yachts, their jewelry, their private islands . . . Trump wants to pick Supreme Court justices who will protect the Constitution. The Constitution doesn’t need protecting; it just needs an annotated edition with color pictures, a worksheet, and an interactive website. Actually, the Torah could use that, too. I’ll have to tell that to God next time we talk.

Anyhoo, Donald Trump says, “What have you got to lose?” Everything stinks; maybe I’ll stink less. Of course, the last guy who said that was Ralph Nader, and we all saw how well that turned out. So for what it’s worth, I endorse Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. It is not a ringing endorsement. In fact, it’s more of a thudding endorsement. But look at the alternatives: the Trumpster fire? The Libertarian guy who thinks Aleppo is a tiger with spots? The independent party run by a dude named “Joe Exotic?” Look him up. He’s got eight rings in his ear, a Fu Manchu moustache, and a mustard-yellow leisure suit that should be kept 1,000 feet from any building and detonated. Or the guy from the Legal Marijuana Now Party — because, of course, the most urgent problem facing our nation today is finding a place to get your mellow on with some sweet bud? Or the guy from the Nutrition Party, whose sole claim to fame is inventing the Muscle Maker Grill? I mean, I like George Foreman, but I wouldn’t want him negotiating with North Korea. Except about barbecue, and even then, kimchi would be a dealbreaker because who the hell wants to eat that? Seriously.

So we come to the long-awaited end of this contentious, obnoxious, unfathomable election cycle in America. A cycle that had one candidate call a war hero a coward and another whose every private email makes the New York Times bestseller list. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, the bridges are crumbling, the schools are stupid, the terrorists are multiplying, and Steven Tyler is making country music. We’re in big trouble. But vote anyway because if we’ve gotta choose between an egotist with a messiah complex or a liar who understands complexity, I’ll take the one who isn’t relentlessly battling crucifixion. Let’s face it…what Rabbi wouldn’t?

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Vote early, vote often, try the veal.

(c) 2016 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.
https://davelefkowitzwriting.wordpress.com/2016/11/06/non-fiction-essay-humorous-rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-141-11-6-16-electile-dysfunction/

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #139 (5/8/2016): Donald Trump

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #139 (5/8/16): Donald Trump

Aired May 7, 2016 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/UcZDJBjwbW8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 8, 2016.

Just over a year ago, I did a Rabbinical Reflection about the 2016 presidential candidates for the Republican Party. There were a dozen and a half of them—remember? Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Scott Walker—a veritable who’s who of who’s hooligans.

Almost as an aside, I included the candidacy of Donald Trump. I said, and I quote, “Donald Trump, who went bankrupt three times and yet brands himself as a financial genius. Donald Trump, who has a magnificent knack for self-promotion but spends money he doesn’t have like it’s going out of style—why isn’t he running as a Democrat?”

The idea of Donald Drumpf actually getting traction as a viable candidate, and the thought that more than a few flakes would vote for this narcissistic, self-aggrandizing Oompa Loompa was downright comical. And even if he did ride the cult of celebrity for awhile, you had fifteen other G.O.P. hopefuls with their own deluded followers. But then America happened. And the people rejected Chris Christie and his highway robbery. They rejected Marco Rubio the wind-up doll. They rejected Ben Carson, who didn’t need anaesthesia during heart surgery because he could put patients to sleep just by talking to them.

By the time the conservative muckymucks realized that Donald Trump was not just a fad but a movement—and I don’t just mean the kind of movement I have every other morning if I’m lucky and drink my prune juice—by the time the powers that be of the G.O.P. realized their conservative groundswell was getting dug up by a real-estate developer, it was too late to stop him.

My God, their best shot was Ted Cruz, a man who couldn’t find one person to like him—even when he was looking in the mirror. Ted Cruz was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, vehemently pro-Israel (God bless him for that), and seemingly in line with everything the Republican party wanted to roll back from the last eight years. And yet, not a single soul in the House or Senate wanted to work with him. Former speaker of the house John Boehner called Ted Cruz, quote, “Lucifer in the flesh!” and “the most miserable son of a bitch” he ever worked with, unquote. This from Boehner, a man who always behaved like he had a stick so far up his tushie, you could see splinters on his uvula.

And yet, this loathed and despised senator, Ted Cruz, was the Republicans’ last hope of putting one of their boys into the White House. Oh, wait, I’m forgetting about John Kasich. Because we all forgot about John Kasich. The past three months, he should have just changed his name to something Chinese, like: “Oh Him Too.” Especially since his name was on ballots like those restaurants in Chinatown that keep items like putrefied eggs and pig bladders on the menu even though no one in their right minds would order them.

To be fair, Kasich seemed like he had a brilliant strategy compared to go-for-broke losers like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz. Why spend money? Why knock yourself out in races you can’t individually win? Just keep treading water, don’t make waves, and when it’s time for the contested convention, make your perfect dive. What Kasich didn’t realize is that voters saw through his shabby chicanery with Cruz and voted straight up for the man who wasn’t endorsed by the party, wasn’t owned by the Koch brothers, and wasn’t a career politician.

So when the dust settled last week, and the delegate votes were counted, the only candidate with a clear mandate was the one with the cloudiest agenda: Donald Trump. The clown had become the clown prince. This despite—or maybe because of—his penchant for school-bully insults and his crazy, off-the-cuff statements about the Klan and Mexicans and ugly women and pretty women being punished for their abortions. They used to call Reagan the Teflon president because everything stupid slid off him. Well, Trump is Teflon sprayed with Pam, coated with goose grease, and dipped in K.Y. Jelly. Whatever he says, his followers counter with, “He really speaks his mind” or “well, he may say one thing, but we know what he really means.” Do we?

Look, I’m the first to admit—or, if not the first, maybe the 12,030th—to admit that Donald Trump’s wildcard, shoot-from-the-lip status has a visceral appeal. If the two parties running, and usually ruining, the country for the past 30 years don’t approve, he must be good, right? And being a great persuader, he appeals to our emotions—unlike Hilary, who appeals to, well, not even her husband.

But let’s not forget that Donald Trump is a man who promises a robust job market, and yet he grew famous from a TV show on which he fired everyone! This is a man who used to be pro-choice, but when he becomes a Republican, hup!, he suddenly turns anti-abortion. This is a man who vows to fix the country’s troubles by collaborating with the best and brightest, but he couldn’t even find enough intelligent minds to teach in a bogus university. This is a man who wants to keep out immigrants, unless they’re six feet tall, anorexic, and look good on a bearskin rug. This is a man who wants to help the little guy, by building casinos to take their money and hotel rooms that only movie stars can afford.

In other words, the wizard behind the curtain has done very, very well for himself. For others? Not so much. For better or worse, we’ve spent the last eight years led by a community organizer who, perhaps naively, thought he could bring everyone together to solve problems. Are we now ready, instead, for a semi-benevolent dictator who thinks he knows everything and whose answer for every crisis is, “It’ll be amazing. It’ll be beautiful. Believe me.”

We’d like to believe you, Donald. We’d like to believe in something. But 240 years of politics, not to mention the Bernie Sanders campaign, have taught us the futility of belief. And I’m a Rabbi saying this! So if the votes are counted on November 8th, and America chooses the bloviating, thoughtless TV star over the jilted, calumniating harridan, all we can do is what we always do every four years on January 20th: pray.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #34 (1/15/2012): Mitt Romney

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #34 (1/15/2012): Mitt Romney

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aired Jan. 14, 2012 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bei9IbNpAI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 15th, 2012.

At the time of this writing, Mitt Romney is the front-runner in the race for Republican Presidential candidate. This is exciting because three weeks ago, Newt Gingrich was the front-runner in the race. Three weeks before that it was Rick Perry, and before that it was Herman Cain the schvartze, before that it was Michelle Bachmann the cuckoo-head, and before that I think it was Danny Bonaduce, and Ted Bundy, and Jayne Mansfield, and the guy who punches himself in the head outside Caribou Coffee. I think Spongebob was in there somewhere, too. And who knows, in three more weeks, we might have another non-Rom in the red-state sweepstakes.

Not that I’m complaining. The longer Republicans can’t figure out what they want, the less time they’ll have to mount a conservative, Christian-based attack on the White House. Not that I love Obama so much but gevalt! If this is the best the Republicans can do after four years, it makes you understand how they settled on the Bush family two decades ago. I wonder if Dick Cheney was sitting in a think tank going, “Okay, we can either have George and George Dubya or… – what? The Menendez Brothers? The Lohans? Does Charlie Manson have any kids?”

Seriously, in politics, what rises to the top is either debris, like Sarah Palin, or an oil slick, like Perry and Romney. It’s a shame, but if you float on the surface, you wash over those who dive deeper.

But here’s what I don’t get. In the Iowa Caucus held two weeks ago, Mitt Romney topped Rick Santorum by eight votes. That’s out of 60,000 votes cast between them. Less than 4,000 votes behind was Ron Paul. In other words, out of nearly a hundred thousand votes cast, less than 4000 votes separated Romney, Santorum and Paul. And yet, a day later, Mitt Romney was all but coronated as the runaway winner.

Now let me be clear: I’d be happy to see Rick Santorum’s bible thumping lead to his quick exodus, and I don’t trust Ron Paul, who never met an embryo he didn’t like or a homosexual he did. But how did a statistical tie and virtual threeway – and not the good kind of virtual threeway you see on Redtube – how did this dead heat immediately become a landslide win for mighty Mitt? Is it because the Republicans did not want to spend millions fighting a battle they figured Romney would eventually win anyway? Is it because everyone in both parties is shaking in their boots over Ron Paul, because like him or not, he’s the only real game changer? Or is it simply because Mitt Romney looks like the privileged son of Ronald Reagan and George Hamilton, and thinks like the privileged son of Ronald Reagan and Max Headroom?

Barring an economic collapse between now and November, Barack Obama has a strong shot at another four years. So maybe the real story of the GOP is, “look, we run Romney now, go easy on the war chest, so we can bring out the big guns in 2016.” Of course, by current Republican standards, the big gun could be Fred Phelps or Jack van Impe.

As a liberal, and as a middle-aged man jealous of anyone with a full head of hair, I can’t see voting for Romney. But if you’re not going to support him, please don’t support him for the right reasons. It bothers me when people say Romney is unelectable simply because he’s a Mormon. It’s like a dirty word; it’s like voodoo to some people. “Ooh, he must be crazy because he believes in a crazy religion.” As if Judaism and Christianity weren’t based on fairy tales and sanctimony. Not to mention sanctimonious fairy tales.

Look, if you’ve ever stayed in a Marriott or watched the BYU Cougars in the NCAA, you know that crazy does not mean incompetent. And as a Jew, I also feel a kinship with the Mormons. We both believe in rules written on giant tablets. We both wear amusing undergarments. (Mine happen to have yellow stains on the front, but that’s not religion, that’s prostatitis.) We both think there’s something to be said for having one god and many wives. And finally, we both believe that the United States of America is a magnificent and even blessed place. Or at least it was until the last gang of Republicans got through with it.

So if the 2012 G.O.P. candidate for president is, indeed, going to be Mitt Romney, I wish him a clean, fair, exciting and losing battle. Not that I wish him ill, but it’s the quickest path to his obvious true calling: future game-show host on Fox. Hey, if he were up against Santorum on CBN and Michelle Bachman on “Bridezillas” he’d get my vote. Just, not against Ron Paul on Public Access.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29457