"Why were you visiting the Great Satan America, Patriarch?"

Nasty Local Muslim Leader Keith: Why were you visiting the Great Satan America, Patriarch?

Patriarch: Shopping. We wished to do some shopping.

NLMLK: Shopping?

Patriarch: Yes, shopping.

NLMLK: But what was this "In Defense of Christians", Patriarch?

Patriarch: It is a shopping club.

NLMLK: A shopping club? Then what is it defending you from?

Patriarch: Unseemly high prices.

NLMLK: High prices? Not persecution? I have been told you visited the Great Satan to gain relief from being persecuted.

Patriarch: No, only high prices. We do not feel you persecute us. We only visited the Great Satan for the shopping.

NLMLK: And so who was this "Ted Cruz"?

Patriarch: Nobody. We had heard he offered group discounts.

NLMLK: And did he?

Patriarch: Yes, but there were Jews involved, so we rejected his offers.

NLMLK: I see. Good. One cannot be too careful when publicly traveling to the Great Satan and shopping as In Defense of Christians. Someone could misunderstand your motives, particularly the Jews. If nothing else, they might tempt you with inferior merchandise at ridiculously low prices.

Patriarch: No one could misunderstand our reason for being there. We were scrupulously careful about whom we associated with in our gatherings. Only other shoppers like ourselves.

NLMLK: Good, Patriarch, good. Say, would you happen to know where I could get a good deal on a Samsung 105-inch 4K? The curved one.

Douthat and Dreher to auction beard trimmings to support Mideast Christians

Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher, whose weekly editorial pleas in support of the Mideast's persecuted Christian minority (Dreher runs a popular photo item each week known as "View From Your Persecuted Mideast Christian") have been as relentless over the past decade as they have been admirable, have just announced plans to auction their respective beard trimmings to whoever collects such things, with all proceeds going to support the beleaguered Christians in question. I'll update as more information on this remarkable dual outpouring of selfless generosity becomes available.

Meanwhile David P. Goldman ("Spengler") has this to say:

I had to read the penultimate paragraph of Ross Douthat’s New York Times piece on “friendless Middle East Christians” before the enormity of it sunk in. Douthat wrote:

If Cruz felt that he couldn’t address an audience of persecuted Arab Christians without including a florid, “no greater ally” preamble about Israel, he could have withdrawn from the event. The fact that he preferred to do it this way says a lot–none of it good–about his priorities and instincts.

In so many words: Jew-hatred among Middle Eastern Christians is so rampant that it should be ignored in the interests of saving this oppressed minority. Never mind that it is impossible to conceive of any strategic configuration on the Middle East that might help Middle Eastern Christians without including Israel; never mind that Israel’s supporters in the United States are among the first to urge America to act on their behalf; and, above all, never mind that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians can practice their religion in security and safety, and that Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population.

The statement is outrageous, capping a long list of inaccuracies. The problem is NOT, as Douthat argues, that “the Middle East’s Christians simply don’t have the kind of influence to matter” in American strategic calculations. The problem is that Middle East Christians threw in with (and some helped invent) a movement directly opposed to American interests in the region, namely the Arab nationalism embodied in the Ba’ath Party. I reviewed this sad history in a 2009 essay [this one] reposted on this site.

While we're all on tippy-toes waiting to see the faces of persecuted Mideast Christians weeping with joy when they receive their beard trimmings checks from D & D during the big reveal on the upcoming New York Times'-sponsored Extreme Makeover: Mideast Christians Edition, can anyone think of ways to leverage the sufferings of this oppressed minority to serve personal or partisan interests far removed from their own?