Death, Taxes and . . .?

  

   Ben Franklin is undoubtedly the most oft-quoted of all our Founding Fathers.  Consider if you will, a mere five "Franklinisms" that most literate people know but are likely unaware of their authorship:

• "A place for everything, everything in its place."

•  "God helps those who help themselves."

• "Time is Money, money is time."

• "Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."

• "There never was a good war, or a bad peace."
  

   My favorite Franklin maxim -- bar none -- happens to be the one for which he is likely best-known:

"Certainty?  In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."

   Over the course of decades I have added various third "certainties" to  my favorite Franklinism:

• ". . . death, taxes and the swallows returning to Capistrano."
  
• ". . . death, taxes and the L.A. Clippers having a lousy team."
• ". . . death, taxes and Law 'n Order."  
• ". . . death, taxes and the Pres. in trouble with someone."
  

    

This last one -- the president being in trouble with someone -- although not a fact of nature like the swallows, a natural fact like the Clippers or an Arbitron Actuality like Law 'n Order is, nonetheless true and certain.  Consider for just a moment the following:

• When President and Mrs. Obama decided on getting a Portuguese water dog, owners of mixed-breeds and champions of dog pound adoptions criticized their choice. (Bo is hypo-allergenic, the Obama girls hyper.)
  
• When President and Mrs. Obama flew to New York in order to take in a Broadway show, the Fox Phalanx complained bitterly about their extravagance. (They wanted to fly commercial, but the Secret Service nixed it.)
• When it was announced that G.M. had declared bankruptcy, the President was accused of leading the country down the ruinous road to Socialism.  

   Yesterday, the President went to Egypt, gave a major address at Cairo University, and then went out to see the Pyramids of Giza. Today, the president toured Buchenwald with Nobel-laureate Elie Weisel.  Anyone want to guess how many people he's in trouble with?

    In some quarters, President Obama was castigated for speaking of his Muslim heritage and roots before a Muslim audience.  Some self-proclaimed "right-thinking" folks bitterly objected to his quoting the Koran  -- 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth' -- despite the fact that this passage drew more applause than any in his 55-minute speech.  Those who objected seem to be unaware that in the same speech the president also quoted the Bible, made passing reference to the Talmud, and proudly announced that he is a Christian. 

    When was the last time -- or indeed the first? -- that an American president went before a large Muslim audience in a Muslim country and spoke not only of America's "unbreakable bond" with Israel, but of the Holocaust to boot?  The president told the assembled students and faculty: "Tomorrow, I visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot, and gassed to death by the Third Reich . . . . Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today."  Indeed, this took courage. 

   What came next took even more courage: "Denying that fact [i.e. the Holocaust] is baseless, ignorant and hateful.  Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."

   And yet, that third certainty -- about the president being in trouble with someone -- was clearly on display.  President Obama was roundly pilloried in some quarters for speaking fervently about the rights and aspirations of the Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian state; as if in thus speaking, he was revealing himself to be an enemy of the Jewish State. 

   In speaking of the aims, rights and aspirations of the Palestinians, President Obama urged them to "abandon violence."  "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed."  He then spoke of how for centuries, "black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves, and the humiliation of segregation."  He stressed that it was not acts of violence that eventually brought about "full and equal rights," but "a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding."

   Many who listened to the president's speech did not hear these words.  Rather, what they did hear was what he had to say to the Israelis: that the United States "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."  The president told the assemblage, "This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop."  In other words, while many found fault with his speaking positively about Israel; about his stressing that the Holocaust did happen, and that 6,000,000 Jews did die; others criticized him for calling upon the Israelis to halt construction of further settlements.

   Then again, the president scored negatively in other camps for what he did not say; for those issues which he did not address.  He had precious little to say about how he hopes to bring Hamas or the Iranians -- who supply Hamas -- to accept a two-state solution.  He did not talk about how continued American military action in Afghanistan and Pakistan will affect his vision for an eventual peace.  While those on the right were pillorying him for even suggesting that America engage Iran without preconditions, the left was accusing the president of being inconsistent -- of disparaging violence even while sending drones into Pakistan. 

   "Violence is a dead end," the president told them.  "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.  That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is not how it is surrendered."

   When read or listened to in its entirety, President Obama's speech is really quite remarkable.  It showed courage and understanding, and was delivered with the eloquence and sensitivity for which he has become known in these parts.  This speech was a way of introducing himself to a part of the world that "knows" America and her leaders more as stereotypes than as creatures of flesh and blood.  And despite being taken to task by the Fox Phalanx for "turning his back on America," the president has done the right thing.

   Face it.  If he is drawing fire from both Israelis and Arabs, from Jews and Muslims, from hyper-conservatives and ultra-liberals, then he certainly must be doing the right thing.

   For the three certainties are "Death, taxes, and . . . ?"

©2009 Kurt F. Stone

Comments

[Ken]

As I expected, your commentary is excellent -- right on the money: as usual

[Gail]

Thanks, a most enlightening article.

[Bob]

I totally agree with your opinion.
Viva Obama!

[m dworin]

I think this is KFS best blog so far. I agree with every word in it. mdwor

[Martin]

PS-The Med or the Dead.

[Martin]

Let's cut to the chase without all the narischkayt: Israel, a state; Palestine, a state. All else is prologue. Otherwise, let them all geh kocken offen yam.