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Jewish World Review June 12, 2000/ 9 Sivan, 5760

Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

Jackie & Raul
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Can a liberal make sense?


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THE ROMANS had their senate where they would discuss the great philosophical problems of the day, the English had their parliament where great orators debated the problems confronting their empire, and we have our neighborhood delicatessen with the table in the rear, around which our collection of sages, between sips of tea in glasses, decides the fate of Western civilization, the day's political events, and whether the pastrami has too much fat on it.

Irving, the retired pants presser, whose analytical ability would make Aristotle want to get out of his business and open a coffee shop on Canal Street, was expounding on a great dilemma of our times: the confusion between liberals and conservatives.

Almost everyone, in the abstract, would like to consider himself a liberal. Liberals are generally thought to be more flexible, human, forgiving, and all around, the kind of people who would be understanding if you are really the low-life everybody says you are. So if one were "liberal," it seemed quite logical to be forgiving when President Clinton was revealed to be a perjurer, guilty of obstruction of justice, suborning perjury, and, on a more human level, a serial adulterer, rapist, semi-rapist, and a person who, in seeking new and exotic taste sensations, asked a 19-year-old intern to impart an interesting and different flavor to his cigars.

However, when Rudy Giuliani acknowledged that he had a private situation -- not disruptive of the affairs of state, nor responsible for convulsing and polarizing the country and Congress, or preventing the orderly conduct of the business of the republic to proceed -- wherein his marriage, like approximately half of all the marriages in America, had deteriorated. Moreover, he was honest, made an open statement, and, of course, did not commit perjury. Suddenly all the demons of liberal hell were loosed upon him.

A radio show host in upstate New York dared to ask senatorial candidate Hillary Clinton a question about her personal life -- at a time when she was and still is running for office on the "I'm a wronged and betrayed wife who is seeking public office as therapy for what I've been through -- and I ask all women who have been through this to bond with me --" platform. The liberal politicians and press treated the question as if it were as inappropriate as doing a strip-tease at a funeral, but saw nothing amiss in asking Rudy Giuliani carloads of questions about much more personal issues.

A liberal will tell you that rape and child sexual molestation are the most vile and despicable crimes imaginable. But if you want to pass a law that makes rapists register when they move into a neighborhood, or suggest that the police be given more latitude in questioning a suspect and, in effect, not have to tell that suspect before they question him that he would be better off if he kept his mouth shut, a liberal suddenly becomes a constitutional scholar, and decides that the Constitution would be little more than wallpaper unless the rapist were allowed to enroll at NYU law school before he had to answer any questions. Liberals say women should have an absolute right to abortion -- to kill a fetus, destroy a life that may or may not be in existence, and in so doing, end the possibility of life for some future person who might have turned out to be an Einstein, Mozart, or Leonardo da Vinci. But G-d forbid, the person who society wants to kill is a convicted serial murderer who's had 2,000 appeals, then they draw the line. They do not believe in killing unless it is done in a gynecologist's office and Blue Cross pays $150 for it.

Irving, the retired pants presser, found these questions too difficult even for him, so the subject soon changed back to the state of the pastrami.


JWR contributors Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder need no introduction. Comment on this column by clicking here.

Up

06/02/00: Never give a GOPer a break
05/17/00: Computers, OY VEY!
05/02/00: Cuba si, Castro nu
04/17/00: Gen. Kennedy for Commander-in-Chief
04/06/00: Guns, hypocrisy and common sense
03/31/00: What's sleazier than a lawyer?
03/23/00: Clinton the 3-D Man
03/10/00: Politics or Pro Wrestling?
02/28/00: Free advice to the pundits: Get a life --- and new jobs
02/14/00: She Flunked!

© 2000, Jackie Mason & Raul Felder. This article first appeared in the American Spectator Online