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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review April 28, 2008 / 23 Nissan 5768

‘The great disappointment’

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The self-appointed 19th-century prophet William Miller attracted an intense following when he predicted the end of the world and the arrival of the Second Coming sometime between March 1843 and April 1844. When the appointed time embarrassingly came and went, one of his followers pluckily predicted a new date of Oct. 22, 1844. The Millerites gathered that night to await the blessed event, and instead experienced what became known as "The Great Disappointment."


Obama's supporters and the media (excuse the redundancy) have expected Obama's ascension to presumed Democratic nominee — accompanied, no doubt, by blazing lights of Unity and trumpet calls of Change — in New Hampshire, Texas and now Pennsylvania and experienced a "Great Disappointment" each time. They have hoped for a secular political Advent, and instead they have gotten Hillary Clinton — stolid and barely solvent, and yet with a persistent appeal to Democratic voters.


Pennsylvania was the first post-Pastor Jeremiah Wright and post-"bitter" primary, and Clinton's victory shouldn't be underestimated. She won by nearly 10 points, after getting outspent by roughly 3-to-1 in a state where Obama campaigned for weeks in an effort to finish her off.


Democrats lost the past two presidential elections by nominating candidates who had trouble connecting with down-scale white voters. They are about to do the same, but with their eyes wide open. When Republicans portrayed John Kerry as an out-of-touch elitist, Democrats were shocked: How could this have happened to a candidate they nominated because he was a manly, bomber-jacket-wearing war hero?


With Obama, no surprises will be necessary. He's already been losing blue-collar white voters to ... Hillary Clinton, whose sense of entitlement, nonexistent common touch and dubious credibility throwing back whiskey shots with a beer chaser hardly make her a natural populist. But Obama has transformed her into one.


Obama has won the white vote only in seven states. He lost whites without a college degree even in his native Illinois. Among traditional Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Clinton racked up numbers as if she had been running against an obscure alderman instead of the most lavishly financed primary candidate in America history, sporting slavish press coverage. She won 70 percent of non-college-educated whites, 59 percent of union members, 69 percent of Catholic voters, and won every income level below $150,000.


The reaction in some liberal precincts was swift — to come down on Hillary hard. The New York Times all but called on Democratic superdelegates to decide the race for Obama, and chided Clinton for her using Osama bin Laden's image in an ad to illustrate the dangers facing us in the world. How dare she invoke the most public face of the terrorist threat against America! The very brittleness of Obama makes much of liberaldom want to wrap him all the tighter in swaddling clothes.


Cover-ups never work, in scandals or campaigns. Obama's candidacy depends on a kind of make-believe that can't be sustained. How is he going to bring the country together around an orthodox left-wing agenda? How is he going to embody bipartisanship when the significant instances of him practicing it in his legislative career are vanishingly few? How can he heal the nation's divisions when he can't even bridge the Democratic Party's yawning demographic divide?


There nonetheless appears no way out, even if Democrats wanted one. The superdelegates were originally created to exercise their independent judgment if the party were to flock to a flawed candidate in a fit of irrational enthusiasm. But few of them have an appetite for rejecting the candidate with the most pledged delegates, especially when he's an African-American in a party devoted to sensitivity and inclusiveness. Then, there's the alternative. Clinton may have formidable demographic strengths, but they are matched by her stark personal weaknesses.


So Democrats are left to hope against hope that Obama can again become the miraculously unifying figure he seemed in February: "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief."

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Rich Lowry Archives

© 2008 King Features Syndicate

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