Sarah Palin, Neocon Messiah

Judge them by their enemies. More evidence
that Barack Obama might be shaping up as a good president is that Norman
Podhoretz hates him so much. In a Wall Street Journal column Monday the
guru of the neoconservatives declared: "I would rather be ruled by the
Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah
Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama."

I know that does not properly address all
of the serious questions raised about the Obama presidency by
progressives, myself included, and as of today we must now add offshore
oil drilling to the list. But it is somewhat reassuring that the
surviving father of the neocon movement should be left so totally
unglued. He is joined in this embrace of the Palin rage by Bill Kristol,
whose late father, Irving, was Podhoretz's comrade in the long march
from the far left to the far right. That shift brought the
neoconservatives to the pinnacle of power in the Bush administration
before they flamed out over the distortions of fact and logic they
peddled as justification for the invasion of Iraq.

Among other things-and this was
particularly important for Podhoretz, who for 35 years had edited
Commentary, a leading journal in the Jewish community-the elimination of
Saddam Hussein was supposed to leave Israel more secure. Instead, just
the opposite has occurred as a consequence of the vastly increased power
of Iran in the region thanks to the elimination of its most feared
local adversary. Any effort to contain the power of Iran has been
compromised by the leading role of the disciples of the Iranian
ayatollahs in the politics of Iraq.

Obama had opposed that war, but he has
certainly done his bit to carry on the Bush policy and has furthered it
in Afghanistan as well. There is no sign of Obama abandoning those
failed adventures, and his fitful efforts to contain Iran while
negotiating a much needed settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict
are quite consistent with those of previous administrations. Indeed, the
U.S. policy agenda for the region seems to be set by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, who, as her warm reception at the recent AIPAC
conference indicates, has long been regarded as a fervent friend of
Israel.

Indeed, from health care, the banking
bailout and on to Mideast peace, it is difficult to find a single policy
proposal from Obama that Bill and Hillary Clinton had not both
previously embraced. So why the particularly strident animus toward
Obama? The answer lies in that fear so common to the tea party core-that
Obama is a false prophet leading the good God-fearing folk astray.
Since Podhoretz claims to be writing out of the Jewish tradition he does
not embrace the possibility of Obama being the Antichrist, but his
language is as descriptively bizarre.

In a WSJ article from last September headlined "Why Are Jews Liberals?"
which is also the title of his latest book, Podhoretz complained
bitterly, "One of the most extraordinary features of Barack Obama's
victory over John McCain was his capture of 78% of the Jewish vote."
What followed was a self-hating tirade against his own: "Jews are by far
the most liberal of any group in America." In support of that view he
quotes the sociologist Nathan Glazer, who argued that Jews, as opposed
to any other immigrant group in America, have ignored their improving
economic status and instead consistently supported "increased government
spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater
regulations on business, and the power of organized labor."

What a great testament to the enduring
decency of Jewish values that they have proved so capable of embracing
social goals that transcend narrow class interest. What a wonderful
refutation of historical anti-Semitism that Jews so consistently ignore
personal economic gain to serve the larger good. Not so in the eyes of
Podhoretz, who was immensely disappointed that the commitment of Jews to
those enlightened views did not dissipate with the nomination of Obama
but rather increased somewhat.

He bemoans the fact that the vast majority
of Jews did not share his fear that Obama was too liberal or
anti-Israel, but instead of chalking that up to an honest disagreement
he invokes the language of the devil's deception: "I am hoping against
hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open
the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political
creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long
been so misguidedly loyal."

So what does that make Sarah Palin-the true
messiah?