Friday, May 06, 2011

"Christians."

Many moons ago, I applied to the United States Navy JAG Corps. I was interviewed at their recruiting center in lower Manhattan by an officer, while another sat at his desk on the other side of the office, his back towards us- i.e., for purposes of this story, he couldn't see my kippa.

Among other questions, Lt. Rock (short for his long Germanic name) asked me a bunch about drug and alcohol use, and my answers were pretty bland- very little drinking, never used hard drugs, never smoked pot. At the last, I distinctly heard the other officer mutter to himself, in a deprecatory tone, "Christian." (He meant it in the way, well, Christians do- as a born-again type.)

That story just popped into my head. (As I mopped the floor, in fact.) For the last few days, I've been agog at the anguish some are going through about Bin Laden's death and the subsequent reaction. (I am not at all agog at the bang-up way the White House has been handling the aftermath. Can't anybody here play this game?) At first, it was the Catholics over at NRO, so my first (unposted there) thought was, "Thank God I'm Jewish." Then it was a few lefty Jews, but I expect nothing more from their ilk. But then it was the all-so-sophisticated Orthodox intelligentsia, the feel-good-sensitive-non-Zionist MO and RWMO types, and finally, I am reduced to saying, "Christians."

Back to mopping.