Today's exchange between President Joe Biden and the increasingly impressive Peter Doocy of Fox News was alarming because Biden appeared not to recall his own nearly disastrous gaffes in Europe -- about the U.S. potentially using chemical weapons in response to Russia's potential use of the same, about U.S. troops going to Ukraine, and about a supposed goal of regime change in Russia. Each of these could launch a World War III-type conflict, and yet Biden said they never happened. Well, that's not all he said: he also said he never walked back the regime change comment (in fact, he did), then he reiterated it, but said it was only a statement of "moral outrage" and not meant as a new policy.
Get that?
Anti-Trump pundits like Bill Kristol were at pains to compare Biden's Warsaw speech, at which the regime change comments were made, to Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech in Berlin. But Reagan did not ad lib the comments, nor did he walk them back. A better parallel would have been Reagan's 1984 joke, when he was warming up for a radio interview and said: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
He had to walk that one back once it leaked, for obvious reasons. But at least Reagan knew he was joking, even if the Russians couldn't or didn't.
So the question is: can we afford to have a president in office who can't recall what he said, and contradicts himself even as he's trying to correct the record, when the consequences of those public words could have major consequences?
Let's play that old game: what if Trump did it? You already know the answer.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
