The White House is Burning

The White House is Burning
5 -11 May 2025

Help! The White House is sizzling with a 107° fever

Could it be jaundice? Yellow fever?

The second-rate in-house medicine men say no sweat: the first 98 degrees are fine, those extra 9° are a bit worrisome, but you have to understand, we’ll explain. Commentators on all sides treat the situation in such reasonable terms, they undermine rationality. Ordinary folks roll up in a ball and shield their heads with their hands. MAGAs, sucking desperately on their “it’s all the fault of Biden/Harris & company” pacifiers, can’t keep their eyes open.

We don’t need an executive summary. One point bursts the abscess: a democracy can’t function with a president that sucks up the ground under our feet, siphons our oxygen, upchucks our values, and smears our screens with trash.
It doesn’t break down into a normal 98° and a questionable little 9°: it’s a life-threatening 107° fever.

Some hands turn everything they touch into shit. The Midas touch transformed all matter into indigestible gold. The guy squatting the White House dematerializes whatever slips through his fingers. He negotiates nothing, has no strategy, leads us nowhere, can’t remember what he said one minute ago, doesn’t open his eyes except to look at himself in the mirror, listens to no one but the echo of his whiny crowing voice, feels no empathy because no one exists beyond the contours of his clumsy figure.

Burning issues go cold. High level talks are off key. He takes a stand, whirls around in the opposite direction, skidding here, there, everywhere, nowhere, like worn tires on a lake of ice.

In 100 days he wiped out a world order that has served for 80 years as a foundation for our modest efforts to improve, collectively and individually. He didn’t replace it; he wiped it out like smudges on the global windshield.

What has he done about the hostile forces that gravely threaten our existence?
He scribbled a few lines on the blackboard: It never would have happened if I was president, if they hadn’t stolen the election in 2020. I’ll solve that in no time flat. If they don’t do it, all hell will break loose.

Then he sent a no-nothing billionaire to the front lines– Gaza hostages, hard-hearted Kremlin, nuclear mullahs– all at the same time. The fellow isn’t a negotiator, certainly not a diplomat. He’s an eraser that wipes out the scribbles on the blackboard. He erases the reality of Hamas’s hostages, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian centrifuges cooking up the mass destruction of our lands.

Meanwhile, the boss has fun with cosplay. This time it’s a lowdown portrait of HIMSELF as pope.

An insult to the very presidency he temporarily occupies. But the guy doesn’t even understand that he’s one in a line of presidents that came before him and will succeed him.

He trips all over his pontifical skirts with fibs and lies. I don’t know who made that image [it just happens to fulfill his clearly expressed wish to be the next pope]. Anyway, it’s innocent, I’m not guilty of anything, and those nasty people bitching about it don’t have a sense of humor. Anyway, Catholics loved me dressed up as the pope [a few days after what’s his name passed away]. Melania said I look so cute in the Holy Father outfit. And J.D. Vance says we have a right to make jokes. He made some good ones his own self! The one about the Haitian immigrants grilling dogs and cats on the barbecue, how ‘bout that one. Vance doesn’t see anything wrong with the president dressing up as the pope: “As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen.”

As a matter of fact, the latest foible of the naked emperor is the military parade/birthday cake thrown together for June 14th. Another frolic just for fun. Nobody wants to dodge bullets in muddy trenches for heaven’s sake. With the huge savings tallied up by the electrically propelled doge, there’s enough to pay for the most beautiful celebration in history.

For DJT, president is just one more costume among others. All on the surface, nothing inside. What does he actually do?
Show & tell.

Press gabfests in the Oval Office, in Air Force Once, on the tarmac and on the South Lawn. Tweets and retweets. Interviews on TV, in podcasts, in print media. He spends his weekends playing golf and winning senior trophies like Idi Amin in the Olympic pool. Melania plays along. She made a brief appearance, disguised as a CEO/fashionista, and slipped back into her mystery-woman shell.

Our commander-in-chief is a high-powered banabana, peddling MAGA caps, mugs, sneakers, cryptocurrencies, badges, pins and what-all. His cronies wear the gilded head of their hero on their lapels.

I know MAGAs that voluntarily swallow those 9° of “regrettable defects” of their “Israël’s best friend” president. I understand the distress of families that beg this man–against all evidence–to bypass their disgraced prime minister and liberate the hostages, all the hostages, as he alone can do. And I observe timid but widening cracks in the cape of belief in the man’s loving devotion to Zion.

But the double-cross of Israël is one long volley of slaps in the face! How can you not see it?

They’re tactical, and deliberately mean. Direct negotiations with Hamas for the liberation of American hostages dead or alive. [Update : we rejoice in the liberation of Edan Alexander on May 12th]. The deaf & dumb determination to make a chewing gum nuclear deal with Iran. The cynical ceasefire cooked up with the Houthis two days after they hit Ben Gurion airport. “They don’t want to fight anymore.” [with the USA]. They just keep on shooting missiles at Israel, with the joyful collaboration of Iran, in pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish state. The guaranteed 100% pure pro-Israël American ambassador Mike Huckabee reminded over-sensitive Zionists: “We don’t need Israel’s permission to negotiate agreements with the Houthis.” The explicit exclusion of Israelis and their interests from ongoing talks with Saudi Arabia. Yanking Mike Waltz from his post as NSA, punished for the crime of collusion with the war-mongering Jewish state and griping about the nuclear deal with [for?] Iran. And now, the boss’s Bigger Better Brighter visit to the Middle-East : Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates. Period. Do you understand? Finally?

No, you don’t understand. The Supreme Being that saved the life of the supreme president that fateful day on the outskirts of Butler PA is not ha shem, not the meshiah that Jews await with infinite patience, it’s the Daddy of Jesus. We have entered the era of a geopolitical Verus Israël.

This, together with the particularly American contempt for Europe, the allies, the free world and, yes, Israël, guides this knife in the back. Listen to the smug, boorish J.D. Vance, notwithstanding his Yale diploma, exasperated by Ukraine and Russia: “They hate each other so much that if you have an hourlong conversation with either side, the first 30 minutes is just them complaining about some historical grievance from four years ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago. “

If you absolutely need History, guys, 10 minutes is more than enough for the roller coaster ride on the lawn of that yellowing white house. It’s a disgrace to even cite the ups and downs. Monday, you give Russia the coveted oblasts–conquered by arms or not–the kidnapped children, the neutrality of a demilitarized Ukraine, and regime change. Tuesday, you scold Putin who’s asking for too much. Wednesday you accuse the EU of dragging out the war. Thursday you say you’ll trust UN peacekeepers to safeguard a hypothetical ceasefire. Friday, you say if they can’t come to an agreement, we’ll drop the whole thing, and you go away for the weekend, some to play golf, some to watch baseball, some to run after the skirts.
By the glaring lights of this White House fever, Europe discovers itself. No, we’re not poor miserable cousins. All things considered, we have arms, armies, cultures, values, purchasing power, public health, diplomatic language, magnificent cities, finesse, savoir-faire and savoir-vivre. The arts of debate and conversation have not perished in our lands. We are still sable to think, express ourselves, behave with elegance and dignity. Our nations, united in their singular individuality, are strong. We are wealthy, charming and talented. Yes, we have the courage to defend Ukraine, with or without the United States. It’s up to us, now, to protect our civilization, our treasure.

If only our dear Europe could heal itself of the two-state solution obsession, the unhealthy disapproval of a Jewish state that defends itself, the twisted vision that deforms the features of an indispensable ally.

Above and beyond the self-inflicted turbulence that makes the news stream a headache, a terrible reality persists on the ground since that infamous October 7th. The unbearable endless torture of hostages, the wounding, mutilation and death of soldiers. A garden of young hopefuls, cruelly mowed down. Survivors of another genocide, brutally assassinated. I am haunted by the beauty of the lost loved ones.

As if all the most beaming smiles in the world had been gathered there, the most tender love stories, the most devoted parents and grandparents, brought together in a blessed corner of the world…transformed into slaughterhouse.

But they don’t surrender.

I draw inspiration from these kindred souls that pick themselves up, that love life, that never give up hope.

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Translated by the author from the original French text published by Tribune Juive.