For your further enlightenment, two news stories on page one of last Sunday’s New York Times. One begins a long report on California’s water problems, attributed to a drought rather than bureaucratic mismanagement. A list of past “catastrophes” that state has survived ends with “budgetary collapse that forced years of devastating cuts in spending.” The immediately following sentence describes that devastation, “These days, the economy is thriving, the population is growing, the state budget is in surplus and development is exploding from Silicon Valley to San Diego; the evidence of it can be seen in the construction cranes dotting the skylines of Los Angeles and San Francisco.” Forgive them, dear reader: they know not what they say. Or that the national economy might benefit from a dose of such devastating spending cuts.
Then there is Israel, whose democratically elected prime minister is coming between our democratically elected president and the somewhat less democratically chosen leaders he is courting in Iran. “G.O.P.’s Israel Support Deepens as Political Contributions Shift.” A brief reference to the fact that Republican support is “partly a result of ideology” is followed by citation to many Jewish contributors — “pro-Israel Republican billionaires and other influential American donors” — who seem to have bought support for Israel from such as Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. That’ll teach these Republicans that they will face the wrath of the Old Grey Lady, and be charged with selling their souls for a mess of Jewish contributions if they follow the decades-long lead of Democrats and worry about the security of Israel.
