By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK–President Trump is so impressed with two Jewish customs described to him by his son-in-law, he’s urging even non-Jews to employ them.
One of the pre-High Holy Day practices in question is tashlich, in which Jews symbolically cast their sins into flowing water with pieces of bread, usually on the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah. The second is apologizing before Yom Kippur to anyone they may have offended in the past year.
“Believe me,” the president commented, “there are scores of people who should be apologizing to me and to our great country.” And to encourage them to do so, he’s issuing tweets to remind critics and adversaries of their offenses.
FORMER STAFF MEMBERS
Steve Bannon– for thinking he ran our country, as evidenced by having his picture on the cover of TIME… Paul Manafort – for pretending he was an important part of my election campaign, just because he chaired it for three months…Anthony Scaramucci (the Mooch) — for headline-grabbing …Sean Spicer – for embarrassing the presidency by sloppy dress, and by hiding in trees…
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – for weakly failing to move my agenda…Sen. John McCain – so-called hero, for cowardly ruining the chance to repeal and replace Obamacare…Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski – for the same treasonous voting…House Majority Leader Paul Ryan — for being weak, ineffective and disloyal.
Sen. Jeff Sessions — for not telling me he’d recuse himself from anything to do with the phony Russian investigation… Sen. Jeff Flake – a flake, all right, about as effective and impressive as a snowflake…Sen. Bob Corker, another perfect name, a corker all right, an incompetent, unstable zero — for questioning my stability and competence.
OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS
Special counsel Robert Mueller — for agreeing to lead the witch hunt on imaginary ties between Russia and my campaign…Barack Obama — for still pretending he was born in the USA…Crooked Hillary Clinton – for sins that would fill an ocean…President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto — for saying in private and public that Mexico won’t pay for the border wall…US District Court Judge Susan Bolton – for wrongly convicting Sheriff Arpaio of criminal contempt when Joe was simply doing his job, and a great job it was.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
So-called Pollsters – who make up phony figures about my popularity… The Corrupt Media – for happily concocting fake stories about me and for refusing to reveal sources (for which they should face prosecution)…Lester Holt – for getting me to admit the Russia investigation was the reason I fired James Comey as FBI director…Destroyers of Civil War Statues – for ripping away our culture.
The Dreamers—for entering our great country illegally and pretending they’re Americans. They must be dreaming…National Park Service — for no longer releasing official crowd estimates, so there’s been deliberate under-counting of the number of people attending my events…The Tree-Huggers, who keep insisting that the world is experiencing climate change and that people share responsibility.
Saturday Night Live, that failing never-funny TV show, and particularly Alec Baldwin, for his pathetic alleged impression of me…and Melissa McCarthy, who failed so miserably at her impression of Sean Spicer.
All in all, a very impressive list.
Will the president cast away his sins and issue any apologies?
“I would, gladly,” he said, “but I have no one to apologize to, and nothing to apologize for.”
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San Diego Jewish World assures readers who are new to freelance writer Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns that they are satirical and should not be taken seriously.