None of My Best Friends are Jewish

I caught no small amount of flack over yesterday's article titled The 51st State of Israel, in which I facetiously suggested that the best thing America can do to protect Israel would be to give it a slice of Utah and Nevada and grant it statehood. Some folks took it as a dead serious proposal, which gives you some idea of the health of irony in our present age. It isn't quite dead yet, but its refuges are limited in number.

Anyone who points to Israel as the long pole in the circus tent of young Mister Bush's foreign policy risks accusations of anti-Semitic bigotry. The easy and cheesy rebuttal to such accusations is "some of my best friends are Jewish," but I'm not easy or cheesy enough to pull that ripcord. The truth be told, I don't have a whole lot of friends period, and if any of them are Jewish, they're going out of their way to hide it from me.

I don't have any black friends either. I've had a lot of pleasant acquaintances with African Americans, starting with some of the guys I played high school football with and continuing into my Navy years, where I worked with some of the finest professionals in that line of business who happened to be, uh, negroes. But I don't stay in touch with any of them.

My first real girlfriend was a dark haired lovely of mixed Chinese and Columbian blood. She dumped me over the phone on my 21st birthday. But as best I can tell, I didn’t let that turn me against Asians and Hispanics, because I've dated a number of Asian ladies since then and was briefly married to a woman whose aunt still lives in Spain. I tried to date this really cute looking gal of Iranian descent once, but she wouldn't go out with me. White girl-wise, my first wife was a Dakota Norwegian, and I lived for a year with a woman of Finnish heritage. I kissed a black girl once when I was 23. We'd both been drinking.

In my way back years as a struggling actor in Chicago, I had a major crush on a trio of Polish sisters. Being a theatrical type, I had a lot of contact with homosexuals. Only in retrospect do I realize that was good training for my life as a naval officer, because I worked with a lot of homosexuals there too.

These days, my favorite editor and sometimes writing partner is a practicing Roman Catholic. I like to think I do a pretty good job of not holding that against her. I try not to be too bigoted against Catholic priests, but if I'm going to be in the same room with one, he has to keep his hands out where I can see them.

I despise Christians like Pat Robertson, and self-styled evangelical politicians like young Mister Bush can suck summer sausage in hell for all eternity as far as I'm concerned.

So I guess I'm a total bigot.

Wait, I just remembered. My two best friends are, in fact, minority members. One is a third generation Mexican and the other is half Croix Indian. But they're both U.S. Navy veterans, and are both married to German-Irish girls, one of whom happens to be my sister. So that likely prejudices me in their favor.

Which makes me an even bigger bigot, I guess.

Yeah, I know, plenty of you won't find this funny or insightful. All I ask is that when you comment on the crass and tasteless tone of this piece, please do me the favor of spelling your hyphenated obscenities correctly.

And please don't throw racial or religious hatred into the discussion of America's Middle East policy.

Make jokes, not war.

Or as the Jewish mom who used to live next door to my Catholic mom would say, "make nice."

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.