I find myself rarely in agreement with Tom Friedman. While I don’t consider myself an expert by any measure in foreign policy matters (the field a majority of his commentary is focused), I am almost in disagreement with him in relation to domestic issues. I’ve always felt his conclusions to be more of the same D.C. insider bunk that pervades most opinion journalism; too focused on the needs of the moneyed interests and less on the Main Street interests.
However, I am rather awed at his comparison between the public tension in the U.S. compared to the tension in Israel prior to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995. He makes a salient point when he notes:
Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.
Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.
However, what bothers me more lately is what appears to be the administration’s lack of attention to this matter or their inability to take it seriously. If the vitrol is this bad just a few months after the election, imagine how much worse it will get in the next three years.
You can read Friedman’s entire piece here.
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