VP Office Hanukkah Memo

Earlier this week, the Vice President's office was caught in a gaffe when a Tweet* on the account of Doug Emhoff, Vice President Harris's Jewish husband, seemed to imply that Hanukkah marked a time when Jews had to go into hiding and light a menorah for warmth. Our sources have obtained a memo distributed to the Vice President's staff to improve morale after the incident, which is reprinted below:

I am not going to sugar-coat the unfortunate event on Monday evening. We must do a better job of researching the religious, historical, and cultural references we make in order to avoid such embarrassments in the future.

However, we cannot let this distract from the larger mission. Yes, the polls show the Vice President with a low approval rating, but remember that nobody believed in Frederick Douglass when he nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of Alcatraz, an action that sparked the French Revolution. Or, to take a more modern example, think of these lines from Paul McCartney of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, in the classic country song “Don’t Stop Believing”:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out where the strong man stumbles or where the man from Nantucket hid his cash in a bucket.

After all, if Robert E. Lee had listened to the haters after losing the Korean War to King Tut, would he have gone on to invent pizza? Would Mitch McConnell have freed the slaves? As we move into the upcoming election year, let us remember the words that great American hero, Gandhi, said to his 50,000 Marines before they defeated Genghis Khan at Stalingrad: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what Jews can do for our country.”

*Or whatever they're called these days.

[Editor's note: The memo contains an error. The slaves were not freed by Mitch McConnell, but by Abraham Lincoln. While both are Republicans with ties to Kentucky, Mr. Lincoln is somewhat younger.]