The Pandering Game

The season of Pandering is upon us, and by now the routine is all too familiar. While negative ads, fund raising efforts in all their forms, email and robo phone calls, misinformation, and pandering have become the norm, to be elected, aspiring candidates have to make the obligatory trip abroad to “establish their foreign policy credentials.” How silly! And by now the routine is all too familiar. Just as wine and bread are essential in the ritual Christians call the Eucharist, a pandering to the American Jewish community and a visit to Israel have become a must for every presidential hopeful and many an aspiring Congress person. To be anointed, the candidate has to do the following: visit Israel; don a skull cap; visit Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall and plant a prayer in a conspicuous crevice; bash Israel’s enemy de jour; visit the Holocaust Memorial to lay a wreath; tell the Israelis that they are “the only democracy in the Middle East and America’s most trusted and dependable ally;” make sure that the equally pandering American media outlets are covering every move, and promise that an unlimited amount of gold will be transferred (on a 24/7 basis) from Ft. Knox to Tel Aviv