A President Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect, Just Effective
Readers of this column will know that last week my wife and I, thank God, married off our eldest child. What they will not know are the conditions we endured for the days prior to the wedding when a freak snow storm caused a power outage in our home town of Englewood, New Jersey, and much of the Northeast. We were preparing for a wedding with a house filled with relatives from around the world who, freezing with no heat, light, or phones, thought America was a third world country.
Compounding that feeling were the dilapidated roads, like the I-95 – one of the America’s premier highways – that passes near our home and that is so filled with potholes and is so perennially under construction that it calls to mind a war zone like Kandahar. Add to that the staggering traffic in New York City where it can take 30 minutes just to go around a city block and my Australian, European, and Israeli relatives came to the conclusion that America is teetering on the brink. We were fortunate that, although the beautiful Rockleigh Country Club and Main Event caterers where the wedding was held itself lost power, its internal generators allowed us to proceed with what was a magnificent wedding. But a few relatives who were supposed to stay for the seven days of celebration that traditionally follow a Jewish wedding left in the morning hours after the ceremony swearing they could no longer endure the freezing conditions to which our area of the country subjected them.
They were right.
Yes, a freak snow storm in October is a challenge. But this is the third power outage lasting several days with which we have been hit in about half a year. All could have been easily avoided if our town could simply afford to run the power lines under the ground where they belong, where trees can’t knock them out of commission, and where they can’t dangle and kill small children, as tragically happened in our area in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. But although we have nearly the highest property taxes in America, our town can barely afford to fix its own streets. Most New York and New Jersey municipalities are spending upwards of $23k per student in the school systems and are locked into such expensive union contracts that they simply don’t have the funds to upgrade infrastructure. The roads in the New York metropolitan area are a disaster zone and will remain that way indefinitely.
While the world reads daily about America’s high unemployment rate and a staggering national debt that just about equals its GDP, what they don’t see is the dilapidated state of America’s infrastructure or the nightmare traffic jams in all its big cities. But government has spent so much money on so many wasteful and ineffective social programs that the funds to stop America from crumbling simply don’t exist.
Truth be told, we should by now all be sick of just complaining about the problems. The last thing America needs is more armchair pundits or television talking heads. It’s time we all did something about it.
When I was a guest on the Glenn Beck show a few weeks ago, he gave his version of the Ten Commandments, one of which was the obligation to run for elective office if you see your country suffering and more worthy candidates than yourself do not exist. This is probably what America most needs, courageous, principled, visionary, and determined citizens unseating the do-nothing class of politicians who watch America crumble by the day yet continue to waste our hard-earned money on efforts that yield few results.
But anyone who has watched what has happened to Herman Cain the past few days will understand why few choose to run and we continue to see mediocrity in the political classes. We’re all human and fallible and most people have things in their past of which they’re not proud. The last thing they want is to be crucified for previous mistakes by the media.
This is not to say that if someone like Herman Cain harassed women it should be overlooked. Of course it should not. These are serious allegations and the American people deserve to know that they are electing dependable, good, and honest people. It is to say that were we to live in a society that had proper values, including that of forgiveness, than Cain and many like him – if the allegations against them are true – could get up in front of the public, admit their mistakes, request forgiveness, change their ways, and run for office. The fear, however, is that the political climate is so fractured, the public so polarized, the media so hungry for blood, that anyone courageous enough to tell the truth and ask to be pardoned for past sin so that they could serve their country would be dragged through the mud and humiliated.
Yet, politicians like Bill Clinton – seen as flawed yet effective – remain highly popular, as does the memory of other seriously blemished men like Thomas Jefferson, Franklyn Roosevelt, and John Kennedy.
America has to make a decision. Does it want perfection like Barack Obama who rarely stumbles but lacks the grit to get American out of the morass of crushing debt and joblessness or does it want men and women who can dig us out but who have dirt under their fingernails?
The Jewish people are currently reading the book of Genesis. It is a fascinating narrative of incredible men and women who achieved great things while simultaneously guilty of serious error, from Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden to Jacob favoring Joseph over his other children and the tragic consequences that followed. Yet, these were men and women built whole nations, serving as patriarchs and matriarchs. The moral of the story: righteousness is defined not by perfection but by wrestling with one’s nature to serve the public good amid one’s undeniable defects.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has just published “Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Yourself.” Follow him on his website and on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
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You missed the point of the Cain issue:
Clinton and Kennedy etc. While they may have been immoral, were not forcing themselves upon others. It was mutual.
The allegations against Cain were that he harassed them.
That is what people take issue with.
(Aside from the fact, that he did not handle the issue properly, he was not forthcoming about the incident, and has certainly not asked forgiveness from the women, nor the people)
god reprting...NOT
all of a sudden now we should look past deficiencies….
Shmuly, your one of the best jewish intellectual minds in america, but you dont know squat about politics!
Dovid
Conclusory. One man’s “courageous truth” is another man’s “stark raving rantings,” and we already knew which man you were. I get enough of this from listening to talk radio.
Milhouse
In what universe does Obama “rarely stumble”? His open sins are enough to disqualify him from any public office, let alone the ones we still don’t know about. Those who voted for him simply didn’t care what he’d done; he could have killed someone and they’d still have voted for him.
As for Cain, so far we don’t even know what it is that he’s alleged to have done, let alone whether the allegations are true. So far he has no case to answer; he’s being accused by anonymous people of unspecified offenses, so how can he possibly defend himself? Even the NKVD told people what they were accused of!
Milhouse
#1, first of all Clinton raped Juanita Broadrick.
Second, Cain has not so far been accused of anything at all. What incident should he have been “forthcoming” about? How should he even have known what the story was about? And why on earth should he have asked anybody’s forgiveness?
COME ON SHMULEY
COME ON SHMULEY TELL THEM WHAT WE REALLY NEED!!
This country needs a tough love president that will figuratively beat congress into at least temporarily changing the existing laws.
AT LEAST TEMPORARILY (FOR 4 YEARS)
BAN THE SPECIAL INTEREST LOBBYISTS
FREE BUSINESSES FROM COSTLY REGULATIONS
TRIPLE THE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID FRAUD INVESTIGATORS
CAP MEDICAL LAW SUITS AND MAKE PEOPLE PAY FOR FILING FRIVOLOUS SUITS
PICK A REAL BUSINESS MAN TO RUN FOREIGN TRADE DEALS
etc. etc.
The fools on congress know what to do they need someone to make them do it because they are afraid to take it on themselves and be voted out of office.
Raise taxes on the 1%
The system is rigged for the wealthiest! who buy the elections! There doesn’t need to be a deficit. Bush messed up the country by lowering taxes! and allowing the housing bubble and recession.
Just raise taxes on the wealthiest (which wont hurt 99% of crown heights, or other americans) and the country will be ok!
9-9-9 plan is STUPID!!!!
does anyone want to pay an extra 9% when you go make a purchase – in addition to your regular sales tax, another 9%?
If you want to pay more tax, vote for Herman Cain!
Milhouse
#7, Envy and hatred are not Jewish midos. What you’re proposing is highway robbery. Communism, just like our parents suffered in Russia. Steal from the rich, just because they’re rich. What did the rich ever do to you? What right do you or anyone else have to their money? Who cares how much of Crown Heights it will affect? Are people who don’t live in Crown Heights not people too? Not to mention that the people on whom the whole community depends will be affected, and won’t be able to help people any more.
Oh, and you’re lying when you say that Bush messed up the country. Tax receipts went UP under Bush. And he’s the only one who tried to do something about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; it was your heroes Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who stopped him and thus allowed the expansion of subprime mortgages.
#5, in addition to Juanita Broadrick, who certainly didn’t ask to be raped, there was nothing mutual about what Clinton did to Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey.