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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 18, 2008 / 11 Adar II 5768

The dishonesty of hope

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In the first sermon Barack Obama ever heard from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor railed against "white folks' greed," the bombing of Hiroshima and "the callousness of policymakers in the White House and in the statehouse." For Obama, the experience was formative. The sermon's title, "The Audacity of Hope," became the title of Obama's second book and the theme of his presidential campaign.


Now that videotapes have surfaced of Wright's more scorching diatribes — arguing that America deserved 9/11, exclaiming "God damn America" for spreading drugs in the black community, and declaring the U.S. the "US-KKK-a" — Obama professes shock, even though he attended the church for nearly two decades and Wright was his spiritual mentor. Evidently, Obama wants us to believe they never talked about anything besides the Gospel and the weather.


Nothing is so unbecoming as a beacon of the new politics resorting to such naked evasion. Obama adviser David Axelrod tried to tell reporters on a conference call that a reason Wright was disinvited from giving the invocation at Obama's announcement speech in February 2007 was that it was so cold, the program had to be shortened.


Axelrod quickly admitted they kept Wright from the podium because he was potentially controversial. He was loath to do it because it means Obama knew about Wright's venom well before he expressed surprise and dismay over the videotapes. Given that black liberation theology — inherently anti-white and hostile to America as a repository of white sinfulness — underlays the Rev. Wright's ministry, there couldn't have been any escaping it.


Are we to believe that the Rev. Wright had the ushers scan the crowd at every service and, if Barack Obama and his family were present, reverted to a mainstream Christianity and colorblind calls for love and mercy? That Wright suddenly hit upon his theory that the U.S. government had hooked blacks on drugs in the videotaped sermon of 2003, and never mentioned a word of it before?


When Wright loosed his broadsides against the United States, members of the congregation didn't look at each other awkwardly because their pastor had said something uncharacteristic and embarrassing. Instead, they erupted in paroxysms of affirmation; they were used to such statements and enjoyed them.


Of course Obama knew of Wright's commitment to "social justice" (read racialism and anti-Americanism). It's why the Rev. Wright told The New York Times last April: "If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen."


But just three weeks ago, when asked about his church at a campaign event, Obama replied: "I don't think that my church is actually particularly controversial. It is a member of the United Church of Christ. It's got a choir. We sing hymnals. We talk about scripture. You would feel at home if you were there." At least if you didn't mind vitriolic ravings with your Bible readings.


Obama was spinning, a pattern of late. When he made an idiotic pledge in Ohio to withdraw from NAFTA unless it's renegotiated, one of his foreign-policy aides reassured the Canadians it was just campaign rhetoric. Before she was forced from the campaign, top-level Obama aide Samantha Power told the BBC that as president, Obama would re-evaluate his position in favor of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, exposing one of the policy pillars of his campaign as a fraud.


The Rev. Wright drives a wedge into the central contradiction of Obama's campaign — an orthodox liberal politician who rose to prominence in a left-wing milieu in Chicago and has never broken with his party on anything of consequence is campaigning on unifying the country. There is nothing particularly unifying about Obama's past and his voting record. The senator has risen on his words, and will be hard-pressed to talk his way out of his long, jarring association with the gleefully divisive Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

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