So This Taliban Guy Walks Into A Store…

How Drunk Do You Have To Be to Get The Joke?

Last weekend, National Security Advisor James Jones addressed the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The speech was another in a series of gestures from the Obama Administration designed to reach out to the Jewish community after the attempted shakedown of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the building of homes in Jerusalem.

There are many, including your occasionally intrepid blogger, who believe the odious stench of anti-Semitism is coming from the Oval Office. Why else would the elected leader of our Republic choose to distance himself from an important strategic ally (and one of the three countries in the world that actually like us) in a region where our troops are currently pressing our national interests in order to align himself with Islamists, failed dictators and former Soviet Stooges who have murdered US citizen by the hundreds?

President Obama might claim his advisors on the region have convinced him this path is the best way to achieve peace for out ally Israel and solve our issues in the Middle East. Of course these advisors, including (ret.) General Jones and Zbigniew Brzezinski are known to be (in the case of Jones) hostile to the interests of the American Jewish Community or (in the case of Brzezinski) openly and unapologetically anti-Semitic.

This hasn’t been lost on the American Jewish community. Regardless of what Presidential Aide Axelrod and Chief of Staff Emmanuel (both Jews whom my Old Man would call Kapos) claim during their appearances on the Sunday Morning Political Talk Shows, President Obama is losing the support of the Jews, a reliable Democratic voting bloc since before FDR.

So sending Jones to address a pro-Israel think tank to explain the current administrations view on Israel was a bit odd, given his Arabist let’s coddle the Iranians and cozy up to the Saudi’s where the vast majority of the 9/11 Hijackers were raised and recruited view of the world. The General elected to open his remarks with a joke. Although a little High School freshmen public speaking class in strategy, a good idea considering he had much ice to break.

The joke General Jones told the WINEP goes something like this:

“A member of the Taliban was separated from his fighting party and wandered around for a few days in the desert, lost, out of food, no water. He looked on the horizon and he saw what looked like a little shack, and he walked toward that shack and as he got to it, turned out that it was a shack, a store, a little store owned by a Jewish merchant. And the Taliban warrior went up to him and said, ‘I need water, get me some water.’ And the merchant said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any water, but would you like to buy a tie? We have a nice sale of ties today.’

“Whereupon the Taliban erupted into a stream of language that I can’t repeat about Israel, about Jewish people, about the man himself, about his family — and just saying ‘I need water, you try to sell me ties, you people don’t get it.’

“And passively, the merchant stood there until this Taliban was through with his diatribe and said, ‘Well, I’m sorry but I don’t have water for you and I forgive you for all of the insults you’ve levied against me, my family, my country, but I will help you out. If you go over that hill and walk about two miles there’s a restaurant there, and they have all the water you’ll need.’

“And the Taliban, instead of saying thanks, still muttering under his breath, disappears over the hill — only to come back about an hour later and walking up to the merchant and says, ‘Your brother tells me I need a tie in order to get into the restaurant.'”

The above joke, a modern riff on an old crack about a guy running a store in the middle of the Crusades, drew polite laughs and nasty opinion from the conservative press. General Jones issued a written apology but once again, the Obama Administration seems to be oblivious to what they say, how they it and who says it to the American Jewish community. It’s one thing to dislike a person or group of people see Truman, Harry S and Nixon, Richard Milhous, but to openly show your prejudices time after time is just unfathomable. I mean, these are supposed to be intellectuals leading the country.

Speaking as a citizen of the Republic, it’s fucking embarrassing so I’d like to help General Jones and perhaps the President, learn how to tell a joke. It is a trait passed down from Jew to Jew and I am here to share it with the current administration in an effort to make President Obama’s Charm the Jews Offensive less offensive.

The Four Steps in the Telling of a Joke.

Step One: Stand Up.

Step Two: Use Your Hands.

Step Three: When in doubt, use the phrase ‘this guy’ as often as possible.

Step Four: Never laugh after you have dropped the punch line on the audience. Act like you’ve been there before and move onto the next joke or, in the case of a speech, new business.

The first thing we need to do is actually make the joke funny.

“Goldberg, an out of work Goldman Sachs trader reads in the New York Times about the incredible entrepreneurial opportunities available in Afghanistan. After checking with a few guys he knows as well as the State Department to make sure he’d be safe, Goldberg sets out to open his own business in Jalalabad, just like the Pioneers of the 1849.

A few weeks later, a member of the Taliban, separated from his fighting party and wandered around for a few days in the desert, lost, out of food, no water. He looked on the horizon and he saw what looked like a little shack, and he walked toward that shack and as he got to it, turned out that it was a shack, a store, a little store owned by Goldberg. And this Taliban warrior guy goes in him and demands some water.’ Goldberg says, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any water, but would you like to buy a tie? Ties are on sale today.’

“Whereupon this Taliban guy erupted into a stream of language that I can’t repeat about America, about Jews, Goldberg, his family — and just saying ‘I need water, you try to sell me ties?’

“So Goldberg says If you go over that hill and walk about two miles there’s a an Italian restaurant there, and they have all the water you’ll need.’

“The Taliban guy, instead of saying thanks, still muttering under his breath, disappears over the hill — only to come back about an hour later and walking up to the merchant and says, ‘Your brother tells me I need a tie in order to get into the restaurant.'”

Next, I reviewed Jones performance on YouTube and it was so-well-offensive. Yes, he was standing. Yes, he used his hands. But his delivery, it was way to dry, perhaps he should have looked up at the audience more often. Of course, he laughed at his own punch line. Jesus, talk about stick up the ass WASP.

Note to the General: next time, before you tell a joke to a Jewish audience or any audience for that matter, try starting it with this statement: my best friend, who is a Jew, told me this one.