Yes. I think it’s made it visual, visceral, undeniable. Not on the scale of 9/11 but it has kind of some of the emotional resonance of 9/11. Recently Egypt and the UAE attacked Islamists in Libya without even telling the U.S., which used to dominate the Middle East. You didn’t sneeze without checking with Washington. Now it’s sort of largely irrelevant as a result of Obama’s policies.
There’s a feeling in the country that we’ve gone really downhill and this is a symbol of it. Will it wake us up, galvanize us? I think it will make it easier for a leader who’s prepared to lead to make the case. If you get a president who wants to do something, then you get a population aroused and angered by what it saw. The problem is you have a president who doesn’t know what he wants to do or doesn’t want to do anything but is pretending he’s thinking. Without leadership, nothing will happen. You can have ten Foley videos, and it won’t change.
Obama’s seeming apathy and passivity in the face of growing international turmoil has turned some of the most faithful liberal fans into critics. Do you think the media finally feel free to criticize the president?
That’s an interesting question. With Obama the press is very fickle. They are deeply committed to him. They came onboard in ‘08 and it’s hard for them to admit error. But with everything going on in the world it’s hard to deny error. He’s not a very good president. Even the left and the liberal media have to admit it.
But I think their antipathy for conservatives and Republicans will override their disappointment with Obama. So as soon as we approach the elections they will become far more critical of Republicans, perhaps as a way to balance finally being critical of Obama. So I don’t see a change of heart or ideology. They’re disappointed in the man. Maybe it will translate into even more enthusiastic support for the Democratic candidate in 2016 to compensate for having been nasty to a Democratic president.
Do you think a subsequent leader will be able to provide a corrective course after eight years of this administration’s policies?
Yes. I have great faith in America. America always comes back. There’s something almost providential about American history. The founders, a tiny population on this little outpost of civilization, produced the greatest generation of political thinkers in history. When we needed Lincoln a century later, a Lincoln appeared. We were saying the same thing in 1979, and Reagan came along.
People are getting tired of Obama. They know there’s something wrong, something very strange, about the president, so disconnected. And they don’t like the state to which America has been reduced, ridiculed by the Russians, ridiculed by so many in the Middle East, defied, ignored. Under Obama we’ve slipped quite a lot. We’re at a low and could go either way. If we elect an isolationist or someone very passive and confused about foreign policy, as we did with Obama, then it’s over. Then the world will become more chaotic.
So it’ll depend a lot on 2016. There’s nothing inevitable about American decline. Decline is a choice. Obama chose decline and we don’t have to do that. If we want to assert ourselves, believe in our values, protect ourselves, then we have to do it and we should do it. It’s in our hands.
You grew up in a Jewish home and received what you’ve described as a “rigorous Jewish education.” How has your Jewish upbringing influenced your views?
Anybody growing up in a Jewish environment dominated by Jewish culture, religion, and history as I did is immediately endowed with a tragic sense of history. You tend to veer away from utopianism. You tend to be more suspicious of people who come around promising all kinds of wonderful things. You’re closer to the founders’ vision of human nature as flawed and fallen.
