Sarid on Ass Kissing

Yossi Sarid happens not to be an ass-kisser. Anything but. Neither is he writing about Sharon as an ass-kisser. Not at all. He is writing about all the ass-kissing that has been going on in the ruling Likud party – a party of ass-kissees that can no longer rely on being in power in order to grant favors to the ass-kissers. That’s right, the ass-kissees are going to have to figure out whether they will now have to turn the other cheek, so to speak, and become the kissers themselves. Either way, it’s an interesting read (the ass-kissing part comes at the end).

It’s not merely bad manners and mob behavior, but rather a Mafioso approach toward elected officials who can be blown about like leaves out of fear of the central committee members getting hold of them. There are known cases of members “from the field” getting to lobby high ranking officials, for cash. There are even known cases of central committee members asking for payment from interested parties, so that the committee member would arrange a meeting with ministers in their offices. The “powerful people” of the Likud are usually those who are more addicted to their “friends” – addicted, they sold out, sold jobs and other benefits.

And they also sold precious time: when could the ministers work, let alone think, if every day, every night, they were forced to spend their time at weddings and bar mitzvas and circumcisions and not only of Likud Central Committee members, but their relatives, as well. Sometimes, several times a week, the minister and MK found themselves dancing at two weddings, at least one godfather ceremony and another event marking some family ritual. One can say for sure that our ministers and MKs, as they say in the ruling party, spent so much time cruising in their limos from one end of the country to the other, never had time to think about the fate of the nation.