Majesty and importance Halfway through reading the article on Hillary Clinton’s workday in my Sunday Parade supplement, I suffered a nasty attack of saeva indignatio and had to stop reading.
Looking at the thing now, with some soothing medication coursing through my veins, I’m surprised I even made it past the first section:
September 15
6:45 p.m. Iftar Dinner
Two hundred prominent Muslim-American leaders gather at the State Department for iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. All enter the glittering Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room for an evening of low-key politicking. Muslims have been seeking a position in American politics commensurate with their roughly 6 million in numbers . . .
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“A position in American politics?” What’s
that supposed to mean? What it seems to mean in practice is that Muslims want to silence all criticism of their religion, by
legal action and
threats of violence. And why is
Parade using a number at the high-high end of
the wide range of estimates of the U.S. Muslim population? Where’d they get that “6 million” from? CAIR? Why is
iftar any of the State Department’s business, anyway? Why is the celebration of
any religious festival the business of
any department of the federal government? What else do they celebrate at Foggy Bottom — the
Seating of Zotz?
Then, a bit later on:
12:10 p.m. Ceremony for Senegalese Diplomats
For any who doubt the continuing majesty and importance of America in the world, this event is a stunning curative. The U.S. is giving $540 million in aid to Senegal. While that’s no big deal to the few Americans in attendance, the 250 Senegalese and African leaders present brim with pride . . .
With pride? These people are proud that they’ve wheedled half a bil out of the American taxpayer? They’re proud to be beggars?
If, by probity in politics and good sense in economics, and a couple of decades of imaginative enterprise and grueling hard work under fair laws, Senegal’s people had raised their country to a level of development at which they could tell Mrs. Clinton to take her charity and shove it, that would be an occasion for pride. It seems to me.
Is Mrs. Clinton proud, too — proud that she persuaded this delegation of kleptocrats (Senegal ranks No. 85 out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index) to accept $540 million of your money and mine?
The writer of the article, Leslie H. Gelb, is more than proud of being the victim of this racket. He takes it as illustrating “the continuing majesty and importance of America in the world.” See, we fool Americans used to imagine that the majesty and importance of our nation consisted of stuff like populating the prairie, raising glittering new cities out of barren desert, running a thriving free economy that was the envy of the world, prospering in freedom under sensible laws honestly administered, winning wars, landing on the moon, making movies and writing songs the whole world wanted to enjoy, kids in garages creating entire new industries, diseases conquered, theorems proved, new trails blazed in art and science . . . Well, that was all wrong! Majesty and importance consist in watching talentless bureaucrats hand over your people’s wealth to e-mail scammers.
