Posted by Lee Russ on 8/6/2007, 3:25 pm On the Iraq war? With the exception of the Reform movement, which has passed resolutions in favor of a troop withdrawal and is highly critical of the Bush doctrine on enemy combatants and the Patriot Act, I can't say for certain where any of the big [Jewish] groups stand. A war that has cost the lives of over 3,600 U.S. soldiers and countless Iraqi combatants and civilians rarely rates a mention on the home pages of the major organizations.
Link: http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/071907/edcolCallMeCrazy.html
75.69.88.150
Fromo New Jersey Jewish News Online
Call me crazy, but..
Andrew Silow-Carroll
NJJN Editor-in-Chief
07.19.07
It was Charles Krauthammer who identified what he calls Bush Derangement Syndrome, or BDS. In a 2003 column, Krauthammer defined BDS as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush."
It's a clever phrase, and a devious one. Look how it conflates reaction to the "policies" and "existence" of the president. Thinking people might consider it fair game to oppose a president based on his policies, but Krauthammer's diagnosis suggests that makes no more sense than liking or disliking someone based on his very existence. It's a way of shutting down debate, dismissing as ad hominem the very reasonable arguments by Bush's opponents over policies that have had clear and demonstrable consequences.
And when it comes to these polices and their consequences, let me suggest that the organized Jewish community has suffered not from BDS, but BTS — Bush Timidity Syndrome. That's a condition marked not only by reluctance to oppose the president, but to suspend one's tradition of social activism by hesitating to engage in a debate over his policies in a serious public way.
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Their relative silence becomes more surprising when you consider the poll data. The American Jewish Committee surveyed American Jews last year. They found that 65 percent felt the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, and 66 percent said Iraq will never become a stable democracy. So it is not as if the Jewish political world is stymied by a divided electorate, as it were.
The truth is that they are stymied by an advocacy strategy that is taking Bush's Middle East policies as a package deal. It's not that we supported the war in Iraq because the war might benefit Israel — polls show we didn't and don't. Instead, our leaders fear that confronting the president on Iraq may sour him on the pro-Israel or anti-Iran agenda. (Remember Jim Baker's immortal line: "F— the Jews; they don't vote for us anyway.")
So now we find ourselves in a position in which Republicans have begun to tear themselves up over the war, and Jews are still sitting on the sidelines.
Consider a single week of punditry. William Kristol admits he faces ridicule for even suggesting that the president has "a good shot at achieving a real, though messy, victory in Iraq." Maine Republican Sen. Susan M. Collins declares, "I oppose the current strategy in Iraq and believe it is time to redefine our mission." Influential blogger James Poulos urges fellow conservatives to "find the emotional and political fortitude to reject the president and rally around their principles," adding that "fanatical allegiance to any war in Iraq that the president pleases is the true ticket to political suicide." And Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, suggests that the president's self-confidence and detachment in the face of grim poll numbers and worse war news is "extremely irritating," "unnatural," and "weird."
Of course, none of these conservative mutineers are saying anything that Bush's critics hadn't been saying even before he launched this misbegotten war. Enlightenment equals tragedy plus time, apparently. Noonan even writes the obituary for BDS: "Bush Derangement Syndrome," she writes, "suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore." She goes on to quote "rock-ribbed" Republicans who no longer trust Bush and have removed the "W" stickers from their cars. "Americans can't fire the president right now," writes this former Reagan speechwriter, "so they're waiting it out."
Conservative pundits such as Noonan, and GOP renegades in Congress, have signaled that it is now safe to debate the president's war strategy without being accused of mental illness.
It will be interesting to see if Jewish organizations adopt that very sane approach.
It's a rare moment, indeed, when Ms Noonan and I find ourselves in agreement. For what it's worth, here's what Noonan, the formerly reliable Bush advocate and idolizer of Reagan, had to say:
[http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010326]American Grit
We can't fire the president right now, so we're waiting it out.
Friday, July 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
It's been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush's news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.
I'm not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who'd previously supported him. She said she'd had it. "I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth." I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: "I took the W off my car today," it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.
As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.
Is it defiance? Denial? Is it that he's right and you're wrong, which is your problem? Is he faking a certain steely good cheer to show his foes from Washington to Baghdad that the American president is neither beaten nor bowed? Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.
His stock answer is that of course he feels the sadness of the families who've lost someone in Iraq. And of course he must. Beyond that his good humor seems to me disorienting, and strange.
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I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.
Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.
With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.
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