Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
President Joe Biden arrives at the White House on July 16, 2022, after returning from a trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons depicts God confiding to an angel, "At first I was teaching Job a lesson, but now I'm just messing with him."
You have to wonder if God (or someone) is messing with Joe Biden, for the sheer sport of it. Job, you will recall, was a good man who had done nothing wrong, and then God caused one awful thing after another to befall Job, to test his faith.
Let's review: In the past week alone, Joe Manchin revealed that he has been playing Biden for a fool for close to a year. Biden's Middle East adventure backfired. Though possibly useful for other benefits, the trip yielded Biden a bad press for sucking up to the assassin Mohammed bin Salman and produced no concrete commitments from Saudi Arabia to increase the supply of oil.
Covid is resurging again, undermining the recovery and adding to public frustration. Inflation is at a 41-year high. Oh, and Putin is evidently winning his war of attrition against Ukraine.
Job could sympathize.
As with Job, none of this is really Biden's fault. But like Job, Biden suffers the consequences. And while God was said to testing Job's faith, these Job-like disasters are testing the public's faith in Biden. Not surprisingly, that faith keeps dwindling.
For believers, the Book of Job is supposed to be a parable about keeping faith in the face of absurd adversity. But I've always thought that Job is a pretty good commercial for atheism. What sort of sadistic Divine Providence would put Job through these undeserved abuses, except to "mess with him"?
For me, the takeaway is another aphorism: The Lord helps those who help themselves.
Even though most of this mess is not Biden's doing, he is the president and it falls to him to play the hand that history has dealt him, however unjustly. As we keep writing at The Prospect, Biden could be leading with more nerve, clarity and resolve.
The Book of Job ends with God, satisfied of Job's righteousness, restoring Job to health, wealth, and family. No such happy ending is guaranteed to Biden, or to us.
President Kennedy liked to say, “You make your luck.” And as JFK famously concluded his inaugural address, “Here on Earth, God's work must surely be our own.”
Over to you, Joe(B).
