Someone who takes revenge violates a Biblical
prohibition, as it is written: “Do not take revenge.” (Leviticus )
Although there is no corporal punishment assessed, it shows
extremely bad judgment. Instead it is appropriate for a person to
be less exacting in his standards in worldly matters, because to
discerning people all such matters are meaningless and incidental
and not worthy of revenge. What constitutes revenge? He asked his
friend if he could borrow a shovel and the friend refused. The next
day the friend asks him to lend a shovel, and he says, “I will not
lend you just as you did not lend me.” This is revenge.
[Maimonides, Laws of Proper Thinking 7:8.]
Everything has a time and there is a moment for every
object under the sun. There is a moment to give birth and a moment
to die… there is a moment to break down walls and a moment to
build… There is a moment to throw stones… there is a moment to
embrace and a moment to distance (oneself) from
embrace. [King Solomon, writing as Ecclesiastes,
3:1-5.]
ARLEN SPECTER CALLED ME a cannibal yesterday, but I will
obey the Biblical injunction and eschew revenge. On the other hand,
I must respond to the moment, and Arlen has defined for us the
appropriate stance for this moment: it is indignation.
The outgoing Senator from the great state of Pennsylvania
gave an oratorical summation, a peroration if you will, in which he
waxed more wroth than eloquent. He spoke liltingly of the
collegiality of yore and wiltingly of the disloyalty of the nonce.
Why, there is political cannibalism today [read: Tea Party], where
a sitting Senator [read: Jim DeMint] can work to checkmate a
seatmate. In the old days the members of “this body” were above
such monkeyshines; it was, in Specter’s infelicitous phrase,
“conduct beyond contemplation.”
Disloyalty, eh? Betrayal, eh? Duplicity, eh? That a
brother should be so perfidious?! You gotta be kiddin’
me.
LOOK WHO’S TALKING. This man is the crown prince of
disloyalty, the grand vizier of betrayal, the court jester of
duplicity and the town crier of perfidy. This is a man who less
than two years ago turned his back on a party which had supported
him for nearly three decades, which had rewarded him with plum
chairmanships. He traded his virtue for verdure he thought greener.
Not only did he become a Democrat, he became the most docile lapdog
of the President. When there were a few holdout Senators on
Obamacare, their names were Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln. The specter
of Arlen was nowise visible.
So how many betrayals is that already? One, the Republican
Party, as stated. Two, his fellow Republican Senators, the ones who
let him take leadership roles. A leader abandoning his troops, a
warrior deserting his comrades: apparently none of this is beyond
contemplation. Three, President Bush, who backed him in his prior
primary against a more conservative candidate. Four, the people of
Pennsylvania who elected him under false pretenses.
Nor was he more loyal to the Constitution. He was always a
Big Government guy, one of three Republicans to vote for Obama’s
$700 billion stimulus. He was not loyal to the most vulnerable
among us, voting the pro-choice line. He was against abortion, he
explained, but it was a matter for the family and “not for the
government.” The one place government does not belong is protecting
human life, by this logic.
This exposes yet another disloyalty, to the Jewish People
and its moral teachings. That makes him no worse than most of the
Jews in public office, who are the most reliable votes against all
things Biblical or moral or traditional. But it goes to
credibility, Your Honor. It leads us to ask a simple question: to
what principle or person or institution or nation is Arlen Specter
loyal? The answer is none at all. Jews used to be accused of dual
loyalty, but in the case of Arlen Specter there is no loyalty but
to himself.
This is who is lecturing us on fraternity, a preening
peacock of a man, a guy who makes you want to look up all those
words to describe puffery. Words like gasconade and fanfaronade and
magniloquent and grandiloquent, words from the 19th Century
tailored to the blowhards of the time. Do you remember what a
poseur Specter was during the Clinton impeachment, saying he wanted
to vote neither Guilty nor Not Guilty because he preferred the
Scottish construction Not Proven?
He got his comeuppance in this election, but it was too
little too late. We let this buffoon sit in the United States
Senate until age eighty. Specter is right about one thing: shame on
us!
