Obama's Purimspiel

Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Purim, the epicenter of silliness in the Jewish calendar. It’s hard not to think of the Obama administration.

Back in the 1970s, Robin Williams used to bring down the house with a nightclub impression of Jimmy Carter addressing the nation on the eve of World War III: “That’s all, g’night, you’re on your own!” But President Carter is a giant next to the present occupant of the Oval Office. In Washington earlier this week, my PJ Media colleague Michael Ledeen reminisced with me about the good old days of the Carter administration, when grown-ups still were in charge: Harold Brown at Defense, James Schlesinger at Energy, Michael Blumenthal at Treasury, Ed Muskie at State, as well as Zbigniew Brzezinski at NSC. That did not obviate the Carter administration’s colossal blunders in foreign policy, which led to a burst of Soviet aggression and a near-fatal weakening of the Western alliance, not to mention a devastating stagflation at home.

Compared to the Carter cabinet, though, the Obamoids are a kids’ Purimspiel, a put-on by the peanut gallery masquerading as adults — a clown show, in plain English. Macbeth was never so beguiled by his witches as is McBama by the witches who surround him: Iran-raised Valerie Jarrett, human-rights mavens Susan Rice and Samantha Power, the resentful Michelle, and the Pink Pantsuit at the State Department. What’s her name again? She used to be somebody important.

I stand by my February 2008 profile of Obama as a sociopath dominated by strong women. Obama and his coven suffer from up-close-and-personal identification with the putatively oppressed peoples of the Third World. That goes far beyond the academic prejudices that liberal college students absorb from post-colonial theory. One has to live in the Third World, as Obama did during four of his formative years and Jarrett did in early childhood, to understand the rage and despair of the losers. Many times during visits to Third World countries, I sort of wished that I were a Communist. You see cruelty and indignity that shouldn’t be visited on a cockroach.

To round out the list, we have Leon Panetta at the Department of Defense, a political operator and accountant whose job is to cut the budget. Timothy Geithner? The Stan Laurel half of a duo with the departed Larry Summers. Tom Donilon as national security advisor? His biggest job was six years as chief lobbyist for bankrupt Fannie Mae.

There’s not a single member of the Obama cabinet with grown-up qualifications.  In practical terms, this means that we have fools and incompetents in charge on the eve of a deadly crisis. As I wrote earlier this week, Obama’s claim is laughable (in his March 2 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg) that Iran “is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt.” That ranks among the most outrageous misstatements to emerge from the mouth of an American president. As every security professional knows, American intelligence almost never had advance warning of acquisition of nuclear capability by emerging powers. India, Pakistan, and North Korea all took us by surprise. Iran well may have tested an enriched-uranium device in North Korea in 2010. That story doesn’t have to be true, but only possible, to show Obama up for an incompetent. It is abysmally, obviously, embarrassingly stupid. Now, predictably, the administration is starting yet another round of time-buying talks with Tehran.  We know what costume Obama will wear for Purim. He is dressed as Charlie Brown, trying yet again to kick Ayatollah Khamenei’s football.

America has a Purimspiel in place of an administration. In the original Purim story, the best the Jews of Persia got from King Ahasuerus was a go-ahead to defend themselves against those who meant to annihilate them. Once again, the Jews are on their own.

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