Bob Schwartz

Ratified in 1967, in the wake of the JFK assassination, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution concerns the orderly way to deal with a president unable to carry out his duties.

There have for a while been discussions of whether the current president is mentally fit for office. This week, as he evidences the psychological effects of steroid therapy, of Covid, and of political stress, the question is more focused than ever.

By coincidence, this week sees the publication of Unable: The Law, Politics, and Limits of Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment by Michigan State law professor Brian C. Kalt.

The long and complex Section 4 reads:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

This has never been invoked and there is no litigation on what it means or how it works. Two things are clear.

The phrase “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” (written in 1967, before the drafters understood that it made complete sense to neutrally say “the office” or “their office”) is open to interpretation. What does “unable” mean in this context?

The process is intended to be careful and onerous. It is not a judgment to be made lightly. The decision is spread among a large number of people, so the judgment of even the most partisan or least aware would be overweighed by the prudent and patriotic.

In the present case, even if Trump is mentally unfit, the chance that the amendment would successfully be invoked and applied is very small—even if his psychological condition continues to worsen.

In the future, who knows what becomes of the amendment? Maybe, with the current experience, it will be revised to include mental unfitness. And while they are at it, maybe they can implicitly acknowledge the possibility that the president might not be a “he.”

The most fascinating moment of the VP debate—aside from The Fly—was VP Pence defending Trump on charges that he refused to denounce and encouraged white supremacists and Neo-Nazis:

“President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish.”

We haven’t heard much of this defense before. It is delicate. It sounds too much like “some of my best friends are…”, only more so.

Like Trump, this line is disabled in so many ways that it is hard to know where to begin.

Identifying or practicing as a Jew doesn’t mean you are not intolerant, bigoted or morally challenged. That is not a criticism of the tradition, just a fact of life. I’ve made clear in previous posts that a number of people involved in the administration’s most debased policies are Jewish, at least by affinity. I’ve directly asked where their rabbis are in all this, and a while ago, Stephen Miller’s past rabbi—the man who bar mitzvahed him—publicly took his former congregant to task.

If it’s true that being Jewish is no defense, then the associative principle of only having Jewish relatives is even weaker.

Then there is the question of Trump’s frequently claimed faith. He is obviously faithless, just yesterday bizarrely claiming that his getting the virus was “a blessing from God.” Besides this being a facet of his possible psychosis and Messiah complex, any time a religious tradition is used in supportive reference to Trump, you can be sure it is hypocritical.

Also, there is a thought that Trump himself is actually anti-Semitic. We know without question that his father was, and a number of the recent revelations about the president, including the book by his niece, confirm that Trump himself is. Which not only makes Pence’s defense strange, but raises even stranger questions about what Trump actually thinks about his Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.

A final twisted aspect, probably bafflingly intentional, is that Kamala Harris is not Jewish, but is married to a Jewish man and has Jewish stepchildren. See, she is just like Trump and can’t criticize him! Or something like that.

We would all be better off never having to again hear that line from Pence or any other Trump defenders. Those of us in the tradition would be better off, too, as would Judaism.

Nicholas Ray is the celebrated and iconoclastic director of movies such as Rebel Without a Cause. His film Bigger Than Life (1956) is unusual, even for him.

In the late 1950s, steroids were a new and experimental therapy. Some of the known side effects—side effects that are still an issue decades later—were the basis for the movie. A synopsis from AFI (emphasis added):

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Three things tell us just how sick Trump is with Covid-19.

1. What we have been allowed to know is that he is infected with the virus, had some troubling breathing incidents, went to the hospital, and is receiving an unprecedented combination of drug therapies (unprecedented in that nobody in the world has received this combination).

2. The White House and their doctor are hiding something, being vague, evasive or silent. Reasons to hide significant things are either that it is none of your business or that there is something bad to hide. The greater the efforts to hide, the more likely it is something bad, maybe very bad.

3. He is overcompensating. He is exaggerating. He protests too much. In the past, he ordered his last doctor, Ronny Jackson, to say that Trump could live to be 200. Admittedly, Trump is known to play everything over the top. But even for him, the video and photo ops during his illness look desperate, not convincing.

As for what it means if Trump is as sick as he probably is, and maybe about to get worse, that is yet to be determined. When the worst president in American history is very sick and on a potent drug cocktail that may be affecting his mental health, anything can happen.

Minute by minute, discouraged and oppressed by current events partaking of insanity, lies and unreasoning, I have a dream.

I dream of an America based on Sanity, Truth and Reason. A STAR America. It is not based on all of us sharing the same geography, ideology, politics or culture. About these we are diverse and divergent. It is based on common adherence to, or at least aspiration to, those three ideals.

We can dream, can’t we? We must.

Just hours before the debate, the Jewish Democratic Council of America released an ad, Hate Doesn’t Stop Itself, It Must Be Stopped. In the debate, of course, Trump refused to denounce white supremacists, instead winking at the Proud Boys with his “stand by” directive.

Nevertheless, elements of the organized Jewish community criticized comparing hate in Trump’s America to early-1930s German and Nazis. In the Forward, Halie Soifer, executive director of the JDC, explains:

In a baffling and unfortunate development, some of the major Jewish American organizations came out against our ad. The American Jewish Committee claimed it was an “offensive” distraction “from the urgent need to fight Jew hatred” that trivializes the memory of the Holocaust’s victims. @USJewishDems, take down this ad immediately.

And the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, insisted that references to Hitler have “no place in the presidential race.”

So it was ironic to say the least when, just hours after the ad’s release, the President validated our message at the first presidential debate by refusing to condemn white supremacy. After all, his ugly comments during the debate are hardly the first time Trump has flirted with white nationalists….

It’s sad that despite all this, the ADL and the AJC felt the need to criticize our ad, which was so heartily vindicated just hours later. We recognize that parallels between today and the 1930s are grim and chilling, but they are real. We cannot wish them away, and Trump continues to remind us of the extreme danger of his words, as the AJC and ADL both confirmed in their condemnations of his debate performance last night….

We are proud to speak truth to power, even when it’s difficult. And the truth is that the hatred emboldened by President Trump is an insidious danger to our community and our democracy, and that is why we are doing everything we can to elect Joe Biden and restore the soul of our nation in 34 days.

To our fellow Jewish organizations, we would like to say that the time for equivocation is over. This is no time to back away from the truth.

Readers of this blog may know that during this presidency, I have posted regular references to Nazi Germany, but often as historic observations and not pointed directly at any particular current political situation. Although I have, I admit, frequently posted the question “Are we scared yet?” and a caution about thinking that “it can’t happen here.”

The JDC is right. The time for equivocation is over. In the face of obvious evil, whatever fancy talk they mouth and whatever cloak of rationalizations they wear, apologists become aiders and abettors. Those who claim to know history should go back to their studies. Only the self-deluded and the self-interested turn a blind eye. We should be scared because it can happen anywhere.

‘Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a Peace Train
Oh Peace Train take this country,
Come take me home again
Peace Train by Yusuf/Cat Stevens

My vocabulary includes lots of musical allusions. So after watching just minutes of the presidential debate, Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne started playing in my head.

Spot on, to be sure, but not really helpful for our much needed sanity in this moment. So I accessed other “train” songs in my mental database.

I settled on Peace Train by Yusuf/Cat Stevens. For those who don’t know him, over decades he has been one of the most talented and humane musical stars in the firmament. To mark the 50^th anniversary of his breakthrough album Tea for the Tillerman (1970), he just released an entire rerecording of the disc.

Peace Train is from his 1971 album Teaser and the Firecat (which also includes hit tracks Morning Has Broken and Moonshadow).

Peace Train

Now I’ve been happy lately
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun

Oh, I’ve been smiling lately
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Someday it’s going to come

‘Cause I’m on the edge of darkness
There ride the Peace Train
Oh, Peace Train take this country
Come take me home again

Now I’ve been smiling lately,
Thinkin’ about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
Something good has begun

Get your bags together,
Go bring your good friends, too
‘Cause it’s getting nearer,
It soon will be with you

Now come and join the living,
It’s not so far from you
And it’s getting nearer,
Soon it will all be true

Oh Peace Train sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Train
Come on now Peace Train

Now I’ve been crying lately,
Thinkin’ about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
Why can’t we live in bliss

‘Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a Peace Train
Oh Peace Train take this country,
Come take me home again

We usually talk about the failure of the U.S. to respond effectively to the pandemic as a matter of ignoring or denying science. Along with that, though, is the dominance of style over substance.

The concern for some important leaders was how the situation looked, sounded and felt. If things seemed bad, people would conclude they were bad. Dress up the situation—hiding this, highlighting that, adding some makeup—and everything would seem fine. Even if it was demonstrably not.

Style has always mattered. It is a way of making things or yourself look distinctive, look better. It can also be a way of making things or yourself look better, or at least different, than they are.

Style is more dominant than ever, easier to fashion than ever. Whether or not something is substantial, it is possible for more people and producers to make it look and sound substantial.

Which brings us back to the pandemic and its leaders. Selling something that’s nothing, or less than nothing, is a skill approaching art. They have for the better part of a year now styled the pandemic in ways that didn’t match the substance. The Wizard of Oz, P.T. Barnum. They are continuing that today, and will continue for as long as there are people who will buy the style, no matter how ugly the substance.

Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul.
Return to who you are.
Return to what you are.
Return to where you are born and reborn.

Ashamnu אָשַמנוּ (We Have Transgressed)

We abuse, we betray, we are cruel, we destroy,
We embitter, we falsify, we gossip, we hate,
We insult, we jeer, we kill, we lie, we mock,
We neglect, we oppress, we pervert, we quarrel,
We rebel, we steal, we transgress, we are unkind,
We are violent, we are wicked, we are extremists,
We yearn to do evil, we are zealous for bad causes.
For all of these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us,
and grant us atonement.

Al Cheit  עֵל חֵטְא (For Our Sins)

For the sins we have committed through arrogance and selfishness:
For being obsessed with our own concerns,
For choosing rudeness over common courtesy,
For loving our egos.

For the sins we have committed by defrauding others:
For using people in pursuit of our ambitions,
For manipulating the love of others,
For gossiping.

For the sins we have committed through denial and deceit:
For creating theories to rationalize our behavior,
For faking emotions for our own benefit,
For using the sins of others to excuse our own,
For claiming that ends justify the means.

For the sins we have committed through greed and overindulgence:
For using force to maintain our power,
For poisoning our planet,
For remembering the price of things but forgetting their value.

For the sins we have committed through hardening our hearts:
For accepting poverty as inevitable,
For staying silent when we should speak out,
For resenting the young and ignoring the elderly,
For abandoning proper outrage.

For the sins we have committed through hypocrisy:
For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
For condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
For neglecting our promises.

For the sins we have committed by narrow-mindedness:
For passing judgment without knowledge,
For denying our baseless hatreds.

For the sins we have committed against You through sex and love:
For confusing love with lust,
For pursuing fleeting pleasure while disregarding lasting hurt,
For withholding affection to control the ones we love.

For all these sins, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

Leonard Cohen mural in Montreal

The Days of Awe (Jewish High Holy Days) are coming to a close with Yom Kippur. It has been my practice to share words of wisdom this time of year. There seems so much foolishness around right now that wisdom is a tough sell.

(And, by the way, if your finger is pointing to the most obvious big fools, consider that we are all fools. The difference is not just degree but self-awareness. Remember the log in your own eye.)

Leonard Cohen (1934-2106) is one of the most astonishing poet/songwriters of a generation. He took inspiration from many sources, including his native Judaism. For Yom Kippur, an obvious example is Who By Fire, his version of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer recited on that holy day. I’ve posted about that before.

Shortly before his death in 2016 he released the track You Want It Darker. It contains a direct reference to a profound expression that appears multiple times in the Torah: Hineni. Here I am. In the Bible it is in answer to a call from God. In the song, it is equally stark, coming from a man unwell and near death: Hineni, hineni/I’m ready, my lord.

The song is a poem, so subject to interpretation by the creator and by us, the listeners. It inspires in me a number of thoughts, including this: Light and dark, defiance and acceptance, help and abandonment, are the nature of things. Things as they are. We are reminded in this holiday to practice teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah—turning/repentance, prayer and charity—and we may try. We work to relieve suffering, eliminate folly and light candles. But suffering abides, we are also fools, and we may negligently or purposely allow the candles to go out, or even snuff them.

It is a new year. It is Yom Kippur. Here we are.

If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord

There’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

They’re lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame