This is first time I've ever read a William Kristol column. Excerpt:

"Sacrifices for the sake of freedom, the triumph of good over evil — if John McCain was at a Seder this past weekend, he surely would have liked this passage: “In all ages they rise up against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands.”

"So if Clinton’s Passover message is liberal, and Obama’s is multicultural, one might call McCain’s Zionist."

Ugh. Kristol is right, but this is unpleasant stuff. First the paranoid hysteria that "in all ages they rise up against us to destroy us," which I have heard restated in secular venues plenty of times.

Then the implication that the Holy One is on our side, then and now. Whether God rescued the Jews from the Egyptians, or ever intervenes in human affairs, I wouldn't know. The obvious jubilation over the Egyptians being drowned seems vindictive, especially thousands of years after the fact.

To the 21st century mind, the Jews are obviously the good guys in this ancient story, since they were the slaves. Few realize that the Jews had no philosophical objection to slavery — they just wanted to be the slaveowners, not the enslaved.

Bush uses the same technique of invoking God for secular purposes, to cheer for our team against theirs. "Pray for our troops," as the bumper stickers say. Fundamentalist nutters (along with zionist kooks such as Kristol) probably believe God firmly backs the U.S. occupation troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, well then why is He letting them lose? Better listen up, there may be a message here!

"So if Clinton’s Passover message is liberal, and Obama’s is multicultural, one might call McCain’s Zionist. There’s a clear choice of worldviews here — and not just for Jews, but for all Americans."

But more to the point, Philip, is what if Mark Penn were granted a column in which to spout his political views without revealing that he was Clinton's informal volunteer political advisor, which is how Penn characterizes himself.

The NYT should be ashamed of itself.

OT. I meant to thank you for your comments about mine in another thread but screwed up the little letter thing that you have to enter to prevent scamming, and had no time to rewrite it. Anyway, thank you. Your comments are always thoughtful.

[...] It was easy to see how little our Jewish genetic lineage did to make us really Jewish in the South Africa of my youth, where every Passover, we sat around seder tables singing, in a barely understood Hebrew, of the days when we were slaves, while the black women who lived in our backyards under domestic labor system not that far removed from slavery, carried in steaming tureens of matzoh ball soup and tzimmes. We may have convinced ourselves that our DNA entitled us to claim this story as our own, but it was abundantly clear that in the South African context, most Jews had thrown in their lot with Pharoah, while the Israelites were working in their kitchens. [...]

Great find, MRW … Tony Karon's take on Passover. Mine is a little different, but his view of the Passover narrative as a universal story about liberation from oppression is enlightening. Hearing it read in a Jamaican church a few weeks ago, I just couldn't overcome the cognitive dissonance — a slavery morality tale, courtesy of one of the most privileged groups in America. Christ, shouldn't we be singin' Bob Marley instead –

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/bob-marley-lyrics/redemption-song-lyrics.html

————

Don't give me no "Go Down Moses." I'd rather hear Pastor Solomon Burke — a preacher from Philadelphia — hollerin' his country blues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Burke

I'm listenin' to his album "Nashville" right now. The man's a prophet, I say.

http://tinyurl.com/4am63j