IN PRAISE OF BUSH
America isn't the greatest, but it's among the funniest - thanks to our fearless leader
BY JOE SOBRAN

Joe Sobran is an author, syndicated columnist and editor of a monthly newsletter, SOBRAN'S. See sobran.com for more information or e-mail Sobran at joseph@sobran.com  Other stories by Joe Sobran

Some readers accuse me of having nothing good to say about President Bush, but I can hardly help that. He swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and even his defenders don't seriously say he has done so. I can easily imagine a movie called Mr. Bush Goes to Washington and America Goes to Hell. 

Bush's judgment is also open to question. It isn't just Iraq, where, according to him, we are winning, there is no civil war to speak of, and democracy has succeeded inspiringly, with the rest of the Middle East to follow suit shortly. After gazing into Vladimir Putin's eyes a few years ago, he praised Putin's good soul. Since then, everyone who has crossed Putin has wound up on a meat hook. 

But just to show you I also see the positives, I think Laura Bush is one of our foxier first ladies. She looks smashing in a red sweater. Not to be confused with Mamie Eisenhower, if you follow me! Man! 

And yet I wonder what, as a librarian, she saw in George. Well, they say opposites attract. But is their marriage in trouble? The tabloids keep insinuating that he is playing around with Condi Rice, but I don't buy it. For one thing, look at her teeth. If she gave you a hickey, how would you explain it to your wife? ("Oh, that? Er ... a space alien bit me.") 

I admit, I'm a crabby type. Whenever I watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, hoping to cheer myself up, I get annoyed by Jefferson Smith's proposal to create camps for kids. Where does the Constitution authorize Congress to do that? Babysitting is neither a duty nor a prerogative of the federal government, according to its own fundamental law. 

You can go mad if you take politicians' words seriously. Most people sensibly ignore them. I can't. I'm obsessed with the gap - it's an abyss, really - between word and deed. And it can be funny to be aware of yourself as the only one who's really listening. 

People use words so loosely and irrationally that they think you must be downright nasty if you use them with care. When I say Lincoln was a disastrous president, they think I'm making a personal attack. I'm sure he was a charming and gifted man; but after all, he was willing to sacrifice more than half a million young men to "save the Union." By that, he meant preventing the allegedly "free and independent states" from being independent! It's really that simple. I don't care if he was a saint; if he did that he was a disastrous president. Pardon me for being objective. 

Jews are generally more intelligent than gentiles, because they have the gift of concentration. But, they can also be just as silly when they don't use the minds god gave them. In the November issue of Commentary, for example, Gabriel Schoenfeld said I have made the "charge of dual loyalty" against American Jews who support the state of Israel. 

Not so. And why would it even be a "charge"? Most people have more than one loyalty: multiple, divided, complicated loyalties, in fact. You can hardly blame the Jews for being like everyone else in that respect. 

Schoenfeld has it backward. In fact, I wish some of Israel's supporters (including Bible Christians) would exhibit "dual" loyalty, by occasionally putting America's interests ahead of Israel's. Instead, they have favored two wars against Iraq for Israel's sake. Actually, I think both wars have been bad for both the United States and Israel, not to mention Iraq. But now these people want war with Iran too! The same issue of Commentary urges both another war and another regime change.

That is like saying that what we need right now is a good tragedy. A tragedy with a happy ending, of course. 

Those who are eager for a war always tend to forget that it's likely to be executed by someone like Bush, after which they will complain that though it was fully justified and could easily have been won, it was needlessly botched. They are caught by surprise when the tragedy ends unhappily. Then comes the old refrain, "Don't blame us!" 

I won't say America is the greatest country on Earth, but it's got to be one of the funniest. And I'll give Bush part of the credit for that.