For thousands of years, the Jew has served the world as its most popular scapegoat. If crops failed, a battle was lost or an economy tanked, tyrants would invariably blame it on the Jews. Adolf Hitler wasn’t the first and he hasn’t been the last. Throughout the Middle East, whatever troubles beset an Arab or Muslim nation, you can bet that the resident kingpins are blaming it on Israel.

But in more recent years, the United States has become a target. When the economy bottomed out under Venezuela, Hugo Chavez blamed the U.S. When Iran has trouble building a nuclear bomb or Syria’s al-Assad has a problem defeating the rebels, they blame us and the Israelis. When the world speaks out against Putin’s attempts to restore the Soviet Empire and the Russian economy finds itself in the toilet, he blames America.

Actually, being blamed by despots for being at the root of their problems is a badge of honor. Our problem is that instead of being led by Moses, as was the case with the Jews, we’ve chosen to saddle ourselves with a leader who far more closely resembles King Herod.

Before people tried to watch Barack Obama deal with Vladimir Putin, they should have been warned – especially children and the faint of heart – that it could be traumatic. I mean, if this administration wasn’t prepared to defend Crimea, we should at least have had weapons on their way to the Ukrainians and those promised missile defense systems on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic the day after the Russkies crossed the border. At the same time, we should have announced that we were reversing our present course and increasing the size of our military, contrary to Obama and Hagel’s earlier plan to gut it.

Because programs generally need a slogan to sell them to the voters, I would have suggested “Billions for Defense, Bubkas for Food Stamps.”

If I didn’t despise Obama for all the things he’s done to America in his attempt to radically transform it, I might feel sorry for him. After all, this is a guy who has coasted through life like a traveling salesman, relying on a smile and a spiel. Suddenly, he has come face to face with the reality that you can’t keep the peace by calling for time-outs with people like Putin and the Ayatollah Khomeini the way you can with Sasha and Malia. Affirmative Action, he has finally discovered, can only carry you so far.

Speaking of frustrating activities, is there anything more pointless than two guys arguing over the existence of God? It seems to me that people should be free to believe or not to believe, as they see fit. Believing in God doesn’t make people good, just as doubting His existence doesn’t make them bad. Among the more prominent atheists, you will find Katherine Hepburn, Jawaharlal Nehru, Marlene Dietrich, Randy Newman, Mark Twain, John Malkovich and Penn & Teller. Among the more prominent believers, you will find Osama bin Laden and a great many Mafia dons.

Aside from Islam, which I regard as an evil cult, I personally prefer those who believe in something greater than themselves to those like Obama, Hugh Hefner and Bill Maher, who appear convinced there could be nothing greater.

The people I don’t get are those like Englishmen Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, who seem or seemed totally preoccupied with proving the non-existence of God, and, of course, those folks who paid good money to sit and listen to them debate believers. Frankly, I would rather watch a soccer game than watch two people trying to prove or disprove the unprovable. If ever there was a case for live-and-let-live, I would think this would be it.

Speaking of things English, teachers over there are being encouraged to grade papers using green ink instead of red. England’s educational nannies, who are obviously trying to match our own, inanity for inanity, regard red as too harsh, even though English students apparently prefer red because it’s easier to read.

Still, assuming the nannies aren’t entirely daft, they may have a point. So when I insist that Obama is the vilest disaster to ever befall America, I want him and the IRS to know that I mean it in the nicest green way imaginable.

My friend Bernie Goldberg recently wrote an article in which he questioned whether Obama is delusional or merely political. Personally, I think he’s both. On the one hand, he is clearly a partisan creature who is willing to lie, cheat and wipe his shoes with the Constitution, in order to promote his agenda.

At the same time, he seems to ignore the polls and even the desertion of House and Senate Democrats, who have finally awakened to the fact that blindly following his lead was turning them into lemmings who would inevitably topple over the edge of the electoral cliff.

But, ask yourself: why wouldn’t he be delusional? Here’s a middle-aged man who, as a young boy, was abandoned by his father, his step-father and, ultimately, by his nutburger of a mother, who dumped him on his aging white commie grandparents.

With that background, it’s no surprise that he wound up so loony that he actually believed his election would mark the lowering of the ocean and the healing of the planet.

The biggest surprise is that, with such a torturous upbringing, he didn’t wind up a serial killer.

On the other hand, if he had, he would only have had a handful of victims, and not an entire nation, and by now would probably be in jail, not the White House.