Jitterbugging for Jesus

Jacques Hamel

I was sickened and I mean very sickened by the news of ISIS terrorists who slit the throat of an 84-year-old priest and used nuns as a defense shield during a church’s mass in Normandy.

As I’ve said here before, these are some evil bastards we’re up against, and no amount of mushy hurling of love bombs or envisioning world peace with sloganeering and the posting of “love conquers hate” memes on Facebook is going to stop bloodless psychos.

That said, I’m not suggesting that we “bomb em back to the Stone Age and let God sort em out.”

That’s the approach that Trump seems to favor, though as no less a conservative than Charles Krauthammer at Fox News says, it’s anybody’s guess what ever-inconsistent, wildly unpredictable Trump’s approach to anything in world or national affairs would be.

The only thing we know for certain about Trump is that he and Putin have a mutual admiration thing. I have no doubt that another conservative, George Will, is correct in guessing that Trump won’t release his tax returns because of business ties with Russia. How bizarre and troubling is it that the only thing Trump opposed in the Republican platform was a Ukraine-friendly position. (Answer: Very Troubling even to hardcore conservatives.)*

Personally speaking, I’d vote for a Belizean howler monkey before I’d vote for Trump-Pence-Putin.

I’m voting for Hillary and the Dems and thanks largely to the manly (con) man Trump I’m feeling better about that vote every day.

And not because I’m thrilled about their promises to spend trillions more in money we don’t have to spend on goodies like “free” higher education. Trump’s cockamamie promises would spend us into oblivion far faster than anything the Dems have proposed.

I’m feeling good about my support of Dems because it’s been so refreshing to hear some uplifting language coming out of Philly this week, even if Bernie supporters tried to spoil it all by acting like baby Belizean howler monkeys.

I had my fill of childish monkey business watching the “lock her up” stupidity in Cleveland.

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Seriously, it’s going to take way more than misguided “carpet bombing” and turning entire countries into parking lots to defeat this enemy.

In fact, forces backed by our courageous American “advisors” (please, let’s get real and call them our troops) have recovered a lot of territory from ISIS, only for ISIS to shift its strategy and double down with acts of unimaginable horror against civilians in France, Germany and elsewhere.

Wouldn’t it be nice and oh-so-easy if this were an old-fashioned enemy we could overwhelm and meet on a battleship to work out terms of surrender.

Those were great days.

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Donald Trump (who in my judgment is about as Christian as a wet paper sack and I’m willing to be judged by Jesus by the measure by which I judge) scares me with all his Putin-like macho, manly man swag.

But now, all that said: I do wish that Democratic leadership would approach this war we’re stuck in–which so many of us were so hot to have in Iraq which had nothing to do with 9-11 all those years ago–with a greater sense of urgency.

I do wish Obama and Democrats would make a priority of rallying public support and seeking public unity in backing our military and other American security forces.

It is maddening, if not troubling at this point, that President Obama lacks any sense of strong will to address this madness every day.

It’s not as if he’s sitting on his hands doing nothing to eradicate this enemy, as his haters suggest. He does have our forces harm’s way, fighting and bombing like hell.

But it’s maddening to me that he’s not reminding us every day that a lot of courageous American troops are risking life and limb to stamp out this evil.

It’s maddening that he’s not rallying us constantly, at the very least, to remember that our troops–and a lot of other good, American security experts and allies–are exhausted and overwhelmed trying to protect us and good people everywhere, day in and day out.

It’s maddening that he in his ever-cool detachment shows no sign of passion for defeating ISIS and rallying support at home and around the world against it.

We are in a war, albeit a very untraditional war, and our fighters and security people and allies need the kind of constant moral support from this President that they just don’t get.

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That doesn’t mean I have any truck with the Republican haters trying to score political points by pounding on Democrats this week for not addressing ISIS every minute in Philadelphia.

I just want to say that we as a country are going to have to stop figuratively slitting each other’s throats and start coming together in supporting the brave Americans who at this time are out of sight and out of mind while politicians throw stones at each other and common Americans fight things out in Facebook wars.

We need strong leadership in Washington to rally us together as a country like never before.

And Democrats and Republicans alike failing us. Republicans always want to step on the accelerator and go around the world running over innocents and bad guys alike.

Democrats are in fact guilty of what Republicans consistently and rightly rap them for: projecting weakness.

I mean, Mr. President–don’t be drawing any “red” lines in the sand against Syria’s mass killer of a dictator if you’re not going to back up the ultimatum, and don’t be dismissing evil psychos as “Junior Varsity,” and don’t be puffing up our progress against ISIS when we can see that there ain’t so much progress being made.

It was just that kind of wet-noodle leadership from Obama that led to the rise of macho Don, and he still is blind to it.

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But we the people have our own massive blind spots.

Ultimately, however effective or awful our leaders are falls on us, the people.

It’s not enough anymore for us to demand and expect real and consistent leadership. We’re always seeking a messiah figure of a President and Senator and Congressman and governor who will finally save us and make us great again, or so much greater than we are, that we’ll be a problem-free America.

We take political sides by practically deifying the Trumps or Obamas or Bushes or Clintons–and then when they turn out to act in human ways and make human mistakes, we either go to extreme lengths to justify their whopping big human mistakes (and so often stretch to excuse their inexcusable, inconsistent, unethical behavior) or demean with language that would make the Messiah Jesus weep.

We’re all coming down with a bad case of the spirit of hate and dis-ease in a culture in which 24-7 media and social media keep us in a state of agitation and suspicion of one another.

I’m as susceptible to it sometimes as anyone.

And I know my Lord who is the only Savior weeps.

Come, Lord, come.
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*Update: Unbelievably–no sooner than I hit the send button on this post–Trump invited Russian cyber-spies–repeat, Russian spies!–to dump more emails on Hillary Clinton. Even if this is his idea of a joke it’s a reckless, irresponsible one. So much for pointing the finger at the irresponsible and reckless Debbie Wasserman Schultz!