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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 18, 2009 / 24 Shevat 5769

Obama Needs to Talk the Talk

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's rare to criticize a politician for being all action and no talk, but that's one of the big things that's wrong with Obama's battle against the economic crisis. One of the key variants in any stage of the economic cycle is what the president says is happening. If he talks down the economy, it drops. If he is bullish and optimistic, the markets are likely to listen. Particularly early in his term, when his credibility is high and the spotlight is shining on him, a concerted effort by Obama to inject optimism into his economic commentary could have a very positive effect.


Unfortunately, the president is so anxious to use the bad economy as an excuse to get every last little bit of government spending in the budget that he has pushed the markets down by a nonstop drumbeat of bad news and harsh predictions. When the president says that we may be entering a downturn from which there is no ready escape, investors, consumers, producers and businesspeople tend to listen and avoid any spending or risk. Obama has spent so much time warning of the disaster ahead that he is doing little from his bully pulpit to avert it.


Pessimism comes naturally to the party in opposition, and it takes a while for them to get the message that they need to embrace optimism once they take power. The Clinton administration did not move toward an upbeat assessment of the economy until its third year in office. Even then, after the president had shifted his rhetoric, the Cabinet was slow to come around.


For Obama, shifting to optimism runs the risk that he loses his credibility if his predictions do not bear fruit. Mounting unemployment numbers could make a mockery of his optimism.


Broadly, Obama faces two negative trends over the next few months. On the one hand, the weekly jobless claims and unemployment data will beat a dirge for which the public will hold him increasingly responsible. This drip-drip-drip will become his equivalent of the casualty lists from Iraq that proved to be Bush's undoing.


But, in addition, he will face criticism for his stimulus bill as the spending it envisions actually begins to take shape. The price he will pay for his arrogance in ramming the laundry list of government spending through Congress without even letting the members read what they were approving is that the media will focus on each item and make his people justify its inclusion. There will be an ex post facto review of the law already passed, and voters will begin to wonder how economic development aid to Western Samoa or $50 million to the arts will stimulate the economy.


The foreground of negative economic news and the backdrop of revelations of waste and profligacy in the stimulus package will not make for a happy combination in the eyes of increasingly skeptical voters. Already, Rasmussen reports that only 38 percent feels the stimulus package will do much good, while the rest feels it with either harm the economy or have no real effect.


But if Obama doesn't talk up the economy and emphasize how effective the stimulus package is in ending the recession, he will be throwing away one of his most potent weapons.


All a stimulus package can do is put money in people's hands. It can't make them spend it on things that help the economy. If all they hear from the White House is negatives and doom, they will sequester the money in T bills or use it to pay down debts, neither of which will do Main Street much good, not to mention Wall Street. Is the president capable of optimism after years of preaching doom, first in Iraq and now in the economy? We are about to see if he can master a second language.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Fleeced: How Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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