
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Nov. 13, 2006
/ 22 Mar-Cheshvan, 5767
The path of good intentions
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
An important senator is hit by a truck and dies on the street. He arrives at the pearly gates and is greeted by St. Peter.
"Well," says St. Peter, "we seldom see a member of Congress up here, and we've decided that you must spend one day in hell and one in heaven and then choose where to spend eternity."
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator to hell. When the doors open below, he finds himself on a cool, green golf course. (It looks a lot like St. Andrews in Scotland.) His friends and old colleagues greet him with warmth and bonhomie, eager to reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at taxpayer expense and fattening their pet pigs. After a round of golf and a massage, they dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Satan turns out to be a very friendly fellow, with laughter and jokes.
Soon the 24 hours pass and the senator returns to heaven, where he spends another amiable 24 hours, playing the harp, floating from cloud to cloud, admiring angels who look a lot like Marilyn Monroe, singing all the many verses of "Amazing Grace," and enjoying the pleasures of discipline and restraint. St. Peter finally tells him it's time to choose.
"Well," the senator says, "heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell. They're my kind of people."
St. Peter escorts him to the elevator for his final descent into hell. When the doors open this time, he finds himself in a barren land of waste, rubble and garbage. His friends, in rags, are picking up garbage, stuffing it into ever bigger bags as rubbish continually falls from above.
"I don't understand," the frightened senator stammers. "Yesterday there was a golf course, a clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar and drank champagne at restaurants that looked a lot like the Palm and Charlie Palmer's, and had a high old time. Now there's nothing but garbage and my friends look miserable."
"Ah," says Satan, "yesterday we were campaigning. Today, you voted."
No matter which party governs, it can always expect to be aggressively pursued by bribery, debauchery and corruption. Temptation trumps good intentions when the elected become more concerned with holding on to power than pleasing the people who put them in office.
It's remarkable how many Republicans and conservative friends of Republicans are not only not wasting time on regrets about how the elections turned out, but are actually satisfied with what happened. A lot of the people who put the Republicans in power think the party had a hard lesson coming.
They observed the sleaziness at the center of congressional perks and power, the indulgent scandals of sex and money. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, concedes that corruption was the most costly issue. A lot of congressmen forgot why they were sent here. "It ought not to be continuing your power in office," he told an interviewer on the morning after, "but what you are trying to accomplish and what you are trying to reform." (Now he tells us.)
Many conservatives believe Iraq is better for being free of the brutality and lethal mischief of Saddam Hussein, and the prospect of the trouble he could have made for the West, but they're unhappy about how the Republicans, beginning with the president, are prosecuting the war. They have their fingers crossed that exchanging Donald Rumsfeld for Robert Gates will be more than merely a change of shirts. Conservatives are happy that Joe Lieberman defeated the "What, me worry?" candidate in Connecticut and are counting on him to persuade some of his Democratic colleagues to begin worrying about the consequences of writing off Iraq and the Middle East.
Now the Democrats have to be responsible. They won with an anything-but-Bush agenda, and that only works during a campaign. That some of the newly minted Democratic congressmen are moderate-to-conservative is a cause for hope. They promised fiscal responsibility and restraint, but so had the Republicans who were thrown out last Tuesday. Nancy Pelosi promises bipartisanship without rancor. Easier said than done; the Republicans didn't deliver on that, either.
But change offers fresh faces and fresh opportunities. Will the new Congress set higher standards for itself? Or will the lure of luxurious golf courses, long lunches at pricey watering holes and the high life on the taxpayer's dime corrupt them with the accoutrements of power? Anyone who has been in Washington very long understands that betting on a politician is, like second marriages, a triumph of hope over experience. But we must hope.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|