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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn interviews Surging Santorum Glenn interviews Surging Santorum

February 09, 2012
Wilson

Writer

GLENN: Rick Santorum in the hot seat. Why were they putting their hands all over you yesterday? Rick Santorum, a bunch of pastors, what is up with that?

SANTORUM: You know, it's ‑‑ I know this sounds very foreign to some people but it's called prayer.

PAT: Oh, wow. What about the separation of church and state? Wow.

GLENN: So Rick Santorum, you're admitting that you're in some sort of prayer cult.

SANTORUM: Yeah, believe it or not, I do, in fact, pray and I actually, you know, asked people to pray for me.

PAT: So how about ‑‑ I mean, obviously we've been praying for you and I've been rooting for you the whole time and something good happened the other day. Uh, you just came out of the blue and wrecked the field.

GLENN: How do you explain that? Explain yourself, Rick Santorum.

PAT: Back on the hot seat now.

SANTORUM: Well, you know, the message began ‑‑ was resonating. I mean, we went out to try to, not to spend the money at the time in the states where the campaigns have been, you know, really locked down for a long time in Nevada and Florida and we went out to the place where, you know, you didn't have these millions of dollars being spent tearing candidates apart and we went to the folks in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado and delivered a message and the response was just awesome. You know, people realize that we need a candidate that's going to make Barack Obama the issue in this campaign, and Gingrich and Romney tearing each other are apart, not talking about the issues. And the reason they don't talk about the issues, people began to figure it out, is because on the big issues of the day, they don't actually disagree with each other or Obama. And that's the problem.

GLENN: So Rick, where do you ‑‑ where are you going from here? What ‑‑ what do the polls look like for, is Super Tuesday is the next event, isn't it?

SANTORUM: Well, no. There's Michigan and Arizona coming up at the end of the month and then the following week there is Super Tuesday. I went to Texas yesterday and had a great day there. Big rally, you know, thousands of people. I just came, just walked out of a rally in Oklahoma City here. I don't know how many thousand people were there but it was ‑‑ it was a great venue. We feel very, very good. We're on our way to Tulsa. And Oklahoma is a Super Tuesday state and we believe that this will be a state we will do very, very well in and, in fact, I believe this is a state we can win and we're going to put a lot of effort here.

GLENN: Give me the ‑‑ your take. I don't think we've talked to you since the Catholic church has come under attack and you're the biggest Papist we know. I mean, this is not an attack on life.

SANTORUM: No.

GLENN: This is not an attack on the Catholic church. What is this an attack on?

SANTORUM: This is an attack on the First Amendment, this is an attack on religious liberty, this is an attack on freedom of speech. I was just out with the military, he said the U.S. Army made them stop them from talking to their chaplains talking to their people in the pews and made them ‑‑ ended a message that they called seditious from the Catholic church. I mean, this is ‑‑ what I've been saying and you've been saying, Glenn, for a long time. This is not just about our economic freedom, and ObamaCare and Dodd/Frank and all those government takeovers from the different sectors of our economy. When government says that they can create a right from you, for you, then the government can tell you how to exercise that right and if you don't do it, they'll punish you. Catholic charities, I was told if they don't do and provide that service for the ‑‑ for their people which is specifically against the teachings of the church, they will be fined $150 million. That's $150 million from people who would otherwise be given care by Catholic charities and in their mission work who are getting, now are going to pay tribute to Barack Obama. You say this all the time and you are so right. The real intolerance, the real intolerance in America are those on the left, those who say that you will do what you are told to do, there is no freedom. Look, the First Amendment came about because we are a Judeo‑Christian country and we believe the dignity of every person and that person has the right to have free exercise of basic God‑given rights. The left doesn't believe in God‑given rights. They believe in their right to tell you what to do.

GLENN: This to me is the Niemöller moment. This is the moment where first they came for whomever and I didn't say anything.

SANTORUM: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: Do you believe that? Because that's quite a charge to make.

SANTORUM: No, it is, it is ‑‑ I mean, I wish you'd have heard my speech here in Oklahoma City. That's exactly what I said, that this is not a Catholic issue. This is not a religious issue. This is not a faith issue. This is an issue of the role and the power of government over the people to command them to think the way the government tells you to think and to be what the government tells you to do, which is against your conscience, which is against your right of speech. This is not just about economic freedom anymore. This is about government and its power and control over its people.

GLENN: The federal government is now saying that if you are ‑‑ if you are involved in ministry at all, if you went to school and you're a priest or a pastor or anything and you have federal loans and you are in ministry at all, you don't get the federal pass that they're offering to everybody else. Why do you suppose they're doing that, Rick?

SANTORUM: Well, probably the same reason they tried to eliminate the deductions for charitable organizations. You know, this is an attack, Glenn, and I know you talk about this. In my book it takes a family, I talk a lot about something called mediating institutions in our society. I talk about the importance of having these civic and community and faith organizations, the family itself. As organizations that are in and around the individual, that help the individual buffer from the effect of government and help the individual to be able to live and solve and work and solve the problems at a level that is closest to the individual and so it creates this opportunity to build a great society from the bottom up because you have all of these little, you know, little mediating groups that help you to be able to be free and to pursue your dreams and provide for yourself and your family. The government sees these as problems in our society because they have values that don't comport with the government's values and so they systematically try to eliminate them. And that's faith and family and civic organizations. This is ‑‑ these are the problems in society, from the standpoint of the left. And what you see is it's nothing more than an attempt to hollow out the public square, hollow out the entities between the all‑powerful state and the individual. And the more direct reliance upon the state that the individual has, of course, the more power the state has.

GLENN: Rick, I ‑‑ we were just talking about this the other day and I said, I'm not sure if I've had an in‑depth conversation with you on, you know, the Tides Foundation and, you know, the role that George Soros is playing and I have had one with Romney and he just doesn't go there. And he's like, I don't know. He doesn't necessarily, at least it is my feeling that he doesn't believe that the, you know, these radicals in our universities and around the White House, that they're actually communist revolutionaries that do want to destroy America. He pretty much dismisses them. Where do you stand on that?

SANTORUM: Well, look. I mean, I'm going to try to be as neutral on this as possible. They want to change America. They want to change America from its founding principles. They want to change America to a statist model. They believe that Europe has it right, that as you heard Justice Ginsburg the other day speak and talk about how no country that's establishing a constitution right now should have the ‑‑ should model themselves after the American Constitution, it's an antiquated document. You know, go to the South African Constitution. That's how the left looks at it, that the United States is sort of a, you know, it's ‑‑

GLENN: So you're ‑‑ I don't mean to interrupt you. So you're ‑‑ what you're saying is that you don't believe that these are dangerous revolutionaries; they are people that we disagree with ‑‑

STU: Yeah, and you're not talking about Barack Obama. You're not ‑‑

GLENN: Yeah, I'm talking about the Bill Ayers of the people.

SANTORUM: Oh, no. If you're talking about Bill Ayers and George Soros, they're radicals. These are folks who fundamentally want to ‑‑ want to change America to a country that is ‑‑ that is nothing like what America was built upon because they think it's foundationally flawed and they want to destroy the very premise of this country.

GLENN: And Barack Obama is different how?

SANTORUM: Barack Obama is different in my opinion in approach and degree.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Mmm‑hmmm.

GLENN: All right. Rick, the best of luck to you and I think you're doing a ‑‑ I mean, that was a ‑‑ I think that was a miracle. I mean, you know, what was it? Four months ago you had 1% approval rating.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

GLENN: And now you're doing this. I think it's ‑‑ I think it speaks highly of the message and also the American people that they are saying, you know what? I think I want somebody who is plain spoken and will just tell me the truth and tell me how he feels and ‑‑

STU: How do you see this internally, Rick? Is it something where you see for a long time there's been this debate about electability or some political calculation with everyone's vote. Are you seeing now that you think that maybe messages is trumping that, or are they just seeing you now all of a sudden as someone who can actually beat Barack Obama?

SANTORUM: I think it's a combination of both because the message is what's going to beat Barack Obama.

PAT: Yeah.

SANTORUM: You know, Mitt Romney's whole claim to fame was I've got the most money and therefore I'm going to win and so you should be for me. And, of course, you're not going to have the most money against Barack Obama. He's not going to be able to outspend his opponent five to one and beat their brains in and, you know, the questions I gave to reporters in the last 24 hours, Glenn, you know what they are? You know, are you ready for the attack dogs? It's not on policy. It's like, you know, Romney's going to destroy you. Wow. I mean, that's the best that Mitt Romney has. I'm going to go out and tear you apart. And, you know, whoever's in my way. Well, guess what. When it comes to Barack Obama, he's not going to have the resources to tear Barack Obama apart. Obama's going to have more resources than he is, and they're going to have the ‑‑ they're going to have the national media on their side and we'd better have the issues on our side. We'd better have a vision for this country that motivates the Republican base and gets the independents to believe that there's a better future than Barack Obama. We don't need a technocrat manager. We need someone with a vision and that's not Romney.

GLENN: Let me ‑‑ I'm going to give you a second to say your website because you always do anyway. So I'm going to invite you to say it here in a second.

SANTORUM: RickSantorum.com.

GLENN: Let me just ask you this because I know you won't answer it the other way. So let me rephrase it this way. Would you ‑‑ in the end if it was politically the best thing to do, would you accept Mitt Romney as your vice presidential candidate?

SANTORUM: Uh, what I'm going to do with my vice presidential candidate, because I'm not going to count on any names, I'm going to put the person in there who I believe so ‑‑

GLENN: Yeah, I know you will. Yeah, I know you will, yeah, blah, blah‑blah. But what I'm asking you ‑‑

SANTORUM: Blah, blah, blah, wait a minute.

GLENN: I'm asking you, is there so much bad blood between you, is there bad blood between you?

SANTORUM: I'm not going to talk about names. I'm going to talk about who, the person who would do what I ‑‑ who would follow through with what I believe, what I told the American public I would do. That's what ‑‑

GLENN: So you're saying Mitt Romney won't do that?

STU: (Laughing.)

GLENN: When did you stop beating your wife?

SANTORUM: I love you, Glenn. I love you, Glenn.

GLENN: All right. Go ahead. Say your website.

SANTORUM: All right. RickSantorum.com. Thank you. And by the way, one of the reasons we've done so well is because we've had folks like you out here on the radio, you know, preparing the battlefield for us. And I really mean that.

GLENN: Well ‑‑

SANTORUM: I just, I thank you so much for being out there and ‑‑

GLENN: We just ‑‑

SANTORUM: You know, letting ‑‑ planting the seeds out there. We're trying to germinate them.

GLENN: If you become president, all we need is, you know, special, you know, healthcare exceptions and things like that. That's all we ‑‑

STU: I would really like to be ambassador to Bermuda.

SANTORUM: You'll be one of the elites that I take care of.

GLENN: Oh, good. I just want to be a czar of some sort.

SANTORUM: Whatever you call it, whatever you want.

GLENN: Rick, appreciate it. Thanks so much. RickSantorum.com.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.