The frog-worship scandal

By A.J. DiCintio

Let me be upfront about something right from the jump: This piece is in no way critical of the behavior some Indian citizens are directing toward a remarkable color-changing member of the genus Rana recently discovered in the province of Kerala (as reported in Britain's Sun).

Yes, it is true that some folks are coming not just to see the frog but "to pray and ask for miracles." However, their actions are entirely consistent with the Hindu belief that all creation is an extension of the perfectly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Brahman.

But it is not just the prime article of Hindu belief that forbids criticism. Important facts about the amphibian itself insulate the pilgrims from condemnation — and not because it can change from white to yellow to gray to dark yellow and, finally, to a transparent state that makes "its internal organs" visible.

Following are a few of the truly important aspects of this wonderful creature.

. . . It has never failed to mention India's peace loving people and their democratic, productive spirit in its speeches because it could never deem those facts irrelevant.

. . . It has never traveled abroad to throw itself prostrate on its froggish belly, asking forgiveness for the fact that India has "shown arrogance [to] . . . been dismissive [of], even derisive [toward]" Pakistan, China, and pretty much the rest of the world.

. . . It has never spoken in a way that implies a moral equivalence between Indian sins and every last sin committed by others — including the "man-caused disaster" a few "extremists" visited upon the city of Mumbai.

. . . It has never promised to close an offshore jail built to hold "atankavadi" or "terrorists" (as they are called in Plain Hindi and Plain English) without first offering the people specific details regarding where the stateless psychopaths will be incarcerated and how their cases will be adjudicated in civilian courts.

. . . It has never told the Indian people that they can, indeed, borrow their way to economic prosperity and social stability — but only if they agree to burden themselves with an incubus of borrowing that exceeds the totality of their nation's entire historic debt.

. . . It has never plumed itself as a brilliant, intellectually admirable practitioner of a new politics while it meticulously proposes trillions upon trillions in spending but never speaks a single word or number to the people about the fact that the resulting "unsustainable" deficits mean trillions and trillions in increased taxes — on everyone.

. . . It has never paraded its religious affiliation when doing so is politically expedient only to speak about its faith on the world stage with such general, superficial language that Camille Paglia would say this if it were human, Christian, male, and president of the United States:

[In Cairo, his religion] seemed like a badge or school scarf, a testament of affiliation without spiritual convictions or constraints. . .[His] lack of fervor may be one reason he rejects and perhaps cannot comprehend the religious passions that perennially erupt around the globe and that will never be waved away by mere words. . . By approaching religion with the cool, neutral voice of the American professional elite, [he] was sometimes simplistic and even inadvertently condescending, as in his gift bag of educational perks . . . as if any of [them] could checkmate the seething, hallucinatory obsessions of jihadism. (Salon)

. . . Last, but not finally, it has never been one of the great scourges that plague the family ranidae — a Chicago Machine Politician that always defers to tactics preached by the poisonous toad Saul Alinsky, tactics that instruct every disciple to "freeze, personalize, [and] polarize" an opponent; to betray, in a political nanosecond, a formerly useful religious counselor; and even, when political expediency winks its dirty wink, to throw one's grandmother under a conveniently passing bus.

So, if there is nothing scandalous about how certain admirable citizens of India are reacting to a certain admirably existential frog, whence the scandal?

Well, as you have probably guessed by now, it is associated with members of American's liberal media who regard Barack Obama not as a merely-human being (and a strongly collectivist one at that) but as a very special frog they have kissed into something much more exalted than a prince.

For many, this slobbering love affair (thank you, Bernard Goldberg) became famously public when Chris Matthews proudly announced he experiences a "thrill" going up his leg when Obama speaks.

But as time passed, common sense Americans began to realize that the real excitement occurs not in the liberal leg but in the liberal brain, where Obama-caused impulses blaze across billions of synapses until they saturate every last gray liberal neuron with something that can be described only as an emotional and intellectual orgasm of Krakatoan proportions.

For example, here is Maureen Dowd exploding in wonder and admiration at the divine manner by which President Obama attends to his job:

"He is intellectually engaged by sculpting history. The trellis of hideous problems is a challenge that lures him to be powerfully concentrated."

Despite their considerable labors, Matthews and Dowd have only come close to expressing what liberals really feel and think about Obama, explaining why it fell to Newsweek's courageous Evan Thomas to teach every liberal not just to say "it" but to say it right, that is, to say it explicitly, without an article and with a capital "G."

. . . Reagan was all about America . . . Obama is "we are above that now". . . We stand for something — I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above — above the world, he's sort of God. . .

So, that's the real, disgusting scandal about worship and frogs.

Now, at times we will be tempted to react to it by simply and exclusively mocking the liberal media as a bunch of arrogant, obsessive-compulsive zealots who, having made a religion of politics and gods of politicians, can't resist calling their god with throaty croaks that one particularly perceptive and creative reader of The Sun characterized as sounding something like this: "Br-aaak! Br-aaak! Br-aaak!"

But we can't allow temptation to win the day because history teaches that this kind of worship is unspeakably dangerous in its maniacal, rapturous certainty. Therefore, let's have our fun; but let's also recall that admirable Indian amphibian as we fulfill our obligation to engage a frightening perversity with all the seriousness it deserves.

© A.J. DiCintio