Some times, we have customs in Judaism that are the result of wanting to be different than Christians. Take flower giving: before embalming, Christians would use flowers to cover up the smell of a decaying body. Now, it’s just a kind gesture. Jews had no real need to use flowers because we traditionally bury our dead within about 24 hours. Still today, Jews don’t give flowers to honor a person’s death. It’s just too Christian.
Now take presidential legacies. When Bush 43 moved into the White House, he set himself up to differentiate himself from his predecessor. What ever Bill would do, Bush would do the opposite. Clinton worked well into the night and was a 24/7/365 kinda guy; Bush was more of a 9 to 5 man. In fact he took the summer of 2001 off while al-Qaida put the final touches on the 9/11 terror attacks.
Bill Clinton worked tirelessly in his last year in office to make his legacy be peace in the Middle East. Yasser Arafat made more guest appearances in the White House than Clinton’s big donors. Clinton departed empty handed, save for a successful Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.
Bush 43 didn’t want to stain his hands like Bill. But he quickly had his hands full with war in Afghanistan and Iraq. No time to get mired in a 2,000-year-old conflict.
Fast forward to 2008, less than a year for George to create some kind of legacy. With that clock ticking, Bush decides he has to do something after failures in nearly everything else he’s touched—from the economy, to education and, of course, Afghanistan and Iraq.
So he hops over to Israel for his first trip to the Jewish State as president, and buddies up with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Bush tells his equally unpopular new friend that he needs him to do something to create peace between the Israelis and Palestinians so he can leave some sort of legacy.
Sounds like Bush, who tried so hard to distance himself from Bill, moved so far away on the circle that he’s come back again. Rather than being miles away from Clinton, he’s sitting right next to him and hoping that with 365 days to go, the Palestinians and Israelis will bail him out, giving him something to show for eight years of work.
Better send flowers; Bush’s peace plan is all but dead.
Posted by on 01/15/08 at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
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