Statesmen and Clowns

This week has been a study in contrasts. Which group do you want to lead in a crisis? Which group is populated by relatively more adults while the other is dominated by the kids who were at the back of the class throwing spitballs?

Pres. Joe Biden has handled the most recent crisis in the Middle East masterfully. He understands that, when it comes to this region, any hedging will get you nowhere. So, he’s come down forcefully on the side of America’s ally, Israel, even though he is no fan of its current rightwing government.

He sent his Secretary of State and his Defense Secretary to Israel in a show of support and then followed that up with a risky (both physically and politically) trip there himself yesterday. On the tarmac he embraced Benjamin Netanyahu, a man for which he has no love. But he wasn’t embracing Netanyahu personally, he was embracing Israel. Any gesture short of that would have squandered the moment.

Then after first putting so much capital in the bank with Israel, he was in a position to give advice as a friend. He convinced Netanyahu to allow the Egyptian border to Gaza to be opened for the purpose of delivering humanitarian aid. And he advised the Israeli’s to show some restraint in actions that would put Palestinian civilians in the crossfire — something that’s easier said then done since Hamas terrorists embed themselves in neighborhoods.

And, of course, he accomplished all that after a hospital bombing happened pretty much literally as he was boarding Air Force One to go to the region. Evidence is mounting that it was an errant rocket from another Palestinian terrorist group, but Biden had to be careful because the situation was developing rapidly even as his plane touched down.

That’s Biden. Now let’s look over at the other side of the aisle. In the wake of the October 7th attacks, Donald Trump made it all about him. Not about the 1000 Israeli’s murdered, not about the hostages, not about the innocent Palestinians who would be killed because of Hamas, not about the threat of a wider regional war, but about him. He attacked his erstwhile friend Netanyahu, not for being in charge when Israel had its greatest failure of military intelligence, but for being too quick to recognize that Biden had done what he clearly had done: win his election over Trump. Given that, imagine where we’d be right now if Trump were president in a situation that demands this much delicacy.

Then there’s the House Republicans. Radicals there dumped Speaker Kevin McCarthy for committing the unpardonable sin of working with the other side to keep the government operating — something which, by the way, avoided a political disaster for them and for the rest of his own party. Now they’re demonstrating their own inability — and unfitness — to govern day after awful day.

The latest candidacy is the worst of all. Jim Jordan has used hardball tactics to rile up his most vile supporters, encouraging them to attack moderate holdouts. Some have received death threats. That has backfired on Jordan. The attacks have only strengthened the resolve of the moderates not to allow a bully like Jordan to become Speaker. Good for them. If anything good has come out of the Republicans’ self-inflicted mess it’s that the moderates in that caucus may have found their voice. But we still have a dysfunctional House in the middle of an international crisis.

I’ve long ago shed the quaint notion that anything moves the needle. Nothing Trump does, no matter how callous, inane or criminal, costs him a vote. In fact, the more indictments, the more his lead grows, which says as much about the current state of the Republican Party as it does about him.

But for me at least — a moderate who often despairs about the leftward lurch of his own party — the events of the last couple of weeks have strengthened my connection to Biden and to the Democrats. They have their faults — plenty of them — but they are so very much better than the other guys.