My brief take on the State of the Union (SOTU) on Thursday night.
It was a failure in so many ways. It began with Putin, bizarrely; Biden mentioned Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland before he mentioned the people of the United States. It was also deeply partisan, in a way the SOTU should not be.
He was heckled, and he deserved it. Moreover, Biden failed to condemn the ongoing wave of antisemitism, and spent too much time criticizing Israel.
So -- as a SOTU, it was a failure. But it succeeded in that it showed Biden is still just vigorous enough to give an hour-long speech. That means Democrats who want to replace him before the election have probably lost age as an argument.
I said before the speech that anyone who wants Biden to lose in November should hope that he has a great SOTU. Otherwise Democrats would try to replace him -- and Trump is probably beatable by any other Democrat.
For some more of my thoughts about the speech itself:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/03/08/blue-state-blues-the-real-state-of-the-union/
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:
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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 ...