There is a truly evocative scene in the Jewish tradition
concerning the return home of the warriors of Gad and Reuben
after the war to conquer Israel. The Bible describes the
arrangement Moses made with the tribes of Gad and Reuben (Numbers
32:1-33, Deuteronomy 3:18-20). They could keep the two lands won
in a defensive war on the Moabite plain if they would cross the
Jordan River to fight alongside their brethren for the land of
Israel. The verses in Joshua (1:12-18, 22:1-9) record that they
kept to the bargain. However, their arrival back to their
families is not depicted in the verse, only in the oral tradition
later written as Midrash.
It took fourteen years to capture and settle the land. The
men of Gad and Reuben headed back en masse, traveling like an
army. Back inside their cities, the women and children saw an
immense battalion converging on their territory. This odd society
had few children below 14, but had many strong young warriors
between 20 and 33, since only men over 20 had gone across the
river to fight. Seeing an invading horde approach, they took up
arms to confront. They marched directly into the face of the
menace.
Suddenly one of the older group, sensing they were being
greeted hotly not warmly, shouted: “We are your fathers!”
WHETHER THIS IS INTENDED literally, its underlying message
is a poignant truth. When fathers are absent, the sons assume the
protective role. When the father reappears he is inevitably
undermined to a degree. Barack Obama and the Congressional
Democrats would do well to take this lesson to heart.
Obama and company are assuming the downtrend in his
fortunes may be remedied in ways tried by past Presidents and
mostly true. Make some centrist noises, schedule encounters with
the opposing party, issue some banal statements about
bipartisanship, thus forcing the other side to look extreme if
they persist in roundly rejecting the agenda. When Dick Morris
guided President Clinton successfully in this direction, the
technique was known as triangulation; when Howard Baker tried it
with Ronald Reagan it was more like strangulation. It usually
works more or less.
The difference this time is the people have exploded out of
their ennui and become engaged, sensing the fate of their beloved
country is on the line. Like the children of Gad and Reuben who
would have preferred to have a childhood with a strong daddy at
home, our citizenry would rather cast their quadrennial ballot
and hibernate peacefully while Washington does its thing. Once we
are roused to repair the breach, it is difficult for us to repair
back to the beach.
The White House erred grievously in disparaging the Tea
Party demonstrators as refugees from the fever swamp. Now
ordinary people are feverishly swamping the Democrats from all
sides. Independent voters have abandoned the Dems, leaving them
with only the dependents. But more important than the willingness
to vote against Democrat candidates to weaken the President is
the sense of having arisen to take back the reins. The Scott
Brown victory in particular was a case of a referendum
masquerading as an election. At his celebration, the crowd did
not chant, as might ordinarily be expected, “Scott! Scott!”
Instead they chanted “Forty-one! Forty-one!” This was not to
honor Tom Seaver, but to proclaim the death-knell of the
health-care bill, amenable to sabotage by forty-one Senate
naysayers.
Once the people have been awakened they won’t be put back
to sleep easily nor be counted as sheep. Republicans can
occasionally govern if people are alert, if they embrace their
principles of reasonableness, but Democrats never can. The
governing coalition of the left is achieved by marrying the
know-it-alls to the know-nothings. Once people start paying
attention, Democrat politicians are forced to blockade themselves
inside NPR. The left relies heavily on gonna-control and when the
militia shows up they are thoroughly disarmed.
Incidentally, until recently deficits never excited the
masses into revolt. It seemed too green-eyeshade a subject to
take into account. No longer. Once Obama brought the word
“trillion” into play, he became typecast as Mister T. When there
are too many zeroes in Washington folks in the heartland become
willing to get their digits dirty. Obama and the Democrats in
Congress can no longer save themselves; the only ones who could
still possibly pick them off the floor are… you guessed it, the
Republicans. They don’t believe in gun control and too often
shoot themselves in the foot.
