Real Life Is More Complicated

Real Life Is More Complicated
JUDGES 1:1- 36

This week Barack Obama made what might be the most fateful decision of his young presidency in sending thirty thousand more soldiers into Afghanistan. By the time you read this commentary, we may know whether this produces the desired results. Not being the president, I have the luxury of not having to come to a conclusion about whether it is the right move, and many pundits have the luxury of being able to pontificate about how it could be the wrong move. In 1947 Winston Churchill described democracy as “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried,” and Obama’s action may be the least worst action. In some ways it clashes with the ideals that people attributed to him in voting for him (and that do attach to him), but when you sit in the White House you have to be pragmatic as well as have ideals. This same week the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has also astonished people by declaring himself in favor of a two-state settlement arrangement in the Middle East and of a freeze on settlements. That, too, has been read as a leader discovering that being in charge imposes the necessity to be pragmatic. Indeed, today the news described President Obama as “taking what he could get” on some of his biggest priorities (health care and climate change), “at least for now” because he has not given up on his ideals...