Outlook

People often ask me with respect to my columns in the Jerusalem Post: How can you stand having to deal with all those chareidi-bashers all the time? They must get you so angry.

“Not really” I respond. “I’m lucky. At least I can answer them and perhaps occasionally even grab their attention. I don’t have to keep all the frustration inside.” In short getting a chance to answer back is gratifying.  

American voters answered back last week. It would be a mistake to view the American midterm elections as nothing more than an expression of voter anger over ObamaCare or runaway budgets or high unemployment. I suspect that the most engaged voters last week thoroughly enjoyed themselves just as I enjoyed writing columns rejecting the jurisprudence of Court President Aharon Barak.

The brightest star to emerge on the Republican scene in this election Florida’s thirty-nine-year-old Senator-elect Marco Rubio was also the most upbeat. His parents were Cuban exiles. His father worked as a bartender and his mother as a hotel housekeeper in Las Vegas as he was growing up. An early Tea Party favorite he raced to a landslide victory over Florida’s popular governor on the basis of his ability to articulate a vision of America as a land of boundless opportunity. His message throughout an otherwise bitter campaign was one of relentless optimism.