RUTHFULLY YOURS

Defeating the devil’s advocate

It is understandable that American opponents of the presidency of Barack Obama are growing increasingly worried about the primary election for the Republican candidate who will challenge the incumbent in November.

Iran is stepping up its uranium enrichment. The Arab Spring has turned out to be a predictable Petri dish for radical Islam across the Middle East. The U.S.’ economy is being molded by a socialist agenda that would make Karl Marx kvell. The education system is at an all-time low. Universities are robbing students and parents of all their past savings and future earnings by over-charging and under-teaching (or, worse, imparting politically correct propaganda rather than higher learning). And “values” — to borrow a liberal buzz-word — have gone down the toilet.

Uncle Sam’s updated moral code means that anything goes, everything is relative, and nothing is sacred — other than high self-esteem and low sodium intake.

And though this sorry state of affairs is causing even some self-described middle-of-the-roaders to question whether the hope-and-change messiah didn’t actually turn out to be the guy they had thought he was when they wept at his inauguration alongside Oprah Winfrey, there is still a chance that Obama could remain in the White House.

So, again, it makes sense for conservatives to be cautious. They fear that if the Republican nominee isn’t up to snuff, he will lose and they will be left with another four years of personal, national and international decline.

I couldn’t empathize more with the angst. But I am pretty peeved about the way it is being expressed. Just as Israelis always blame themselves for things that are not their fault, conservatives in the U.S. have been doing the same thing.

The latest case in point is the hysteria surrounding comments that Republican candidate Rick Santorum made in the course of a speech he gave in 2008 at Ave Maria University in Florida.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” he said. “This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country — the United States of America. If you were Satan, whom would you attack in this day and age?”

Gleeful liberals dredged up the video of the Catholic contender and posted it on YouTube. Naturally, the clip went viral, with bloggers competing for cutesy “devilish” headlines.

Nor were the anti-Republicans the only ones to ridicule Santorum’s Satan statements. Instantly, many conservatives rushed to distance themselves from what they considered to be extremist fire-and-brimstone rhetoric. Others — who were less upset by the words themselves than by the effect they might have on floating voters — decided that Santorum was finished, and if not, he ought to be. According to their logic, the most crucial mission is defeating Obama, and only a conservative who doesn’t sound or look like one will be able to woo the independents.

All of the above nervous nellies have decided that only Mitt Romney has a chance in hell (no pun intended) of success in this endeavor. Though they admit to thinking he’s a bit too milk-toast for their taste, they nevertheless consider him the best of the worst.

Two things need to be said to them. First, there is nothing in Santorum’s speech that I myself haven’t been saying for years. Just as there is a force of good, there is a force of evil. The latter does not have horns or spit fire. It whittles away at the fabric of society by tempting normal people to shun the distinction between right and wrong. It enters our hearts and minds by seducing us, not by stabbing us with pitchforks. Satan couldn’t have found a better advocate or more useful idiot than Obama for this purpose.

It is against such a phenomenon that George Orwell was warning in his writings.

That Santorum was reiterating this warning by pointing to what goes on in the media and on campuses across the Western world should have awarded him conservative approval, not disdain. It is not surprising, then, that Orthodox American Jews have begun backing him.

The second thing that conservatives need to keep in mind is that Obama is far worse for the U.S. and Israel than any Republican candidate (with the exception of Ron Paul, who really shouldn’t be running on the Republican ticket anyway).

Instead of wasting valuable ink on self-flagellation, the pro-Republican punditocracy should be pummeling the president without let-up. Because if they don’t stop moaning and groaning about how poor their options are, and if they continue to go after these options with their vitriol, they will be just as responsible for re-electing Obama as if they had cast their lots with him at the ballot box.

Ruthie Blum is a former senior editor and columnist at The Jerusalem Post. She is currently writing a book about the radicalization of the Middle East, to be published by RVP Press in the spring.