MENKEN: President Trump, Defender Of Israel, Ignores Naysayers And Does What He Knows Is Right

In an interview on Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked if President Trump was sent “like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace.” It was a well-timed question, posed in Jerusalem while Jews were commemorating that very salvation — on Purim, the holiday established as described in the Book of Esther. Mr. Pompeo gave a neutral answer: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”

Comparisons of political figures to Biblical ones should hardly be foreign to the media. Barack Obama’s 2008 “victory speech” upon clinching the Democratic Nomination offered a truly messianic vision: Not merely “care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless,” but “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation.” Obama then delivered his formal acceptance speech against a backdrop of Greek columns and entablatures, casting himself as a modern-day Oracle. Major networks, of course, reported upon these events with breathless excitement and manifest credulity.