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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

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

Jewish World Review June 13, 2007 / 27 Sivan, 5767

When did conservatism start to mean never having to say you're sorry?

By Rod Dreher


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In this late winter of our discontent — bordering on, let's be honest, black depression — conservatives' minds turn to the ways the promise of a new era of rightist government has turned to ashes by the Republican Party's incompetence and corruption.


Conservatives long enjoyed a reputation as fiscally trustworthy. The Bush administration and the GOP Congress drowned it in a sea of red ink. Conservatives were thought to be tougher on law and order. Well, well, well: The number of illegal immigrants here nearly doubled under the Bush administration, going from 7 million to 12 million.


Worst of all is the laughingstock the Republicans have made of conservatives' stock in trade: reliability on national security.


Even so, none of this is as damaging to conservatism as the way the Bush administration and its congressional enablers have hollowed out a philosophical — even moral — reason why ordinary people become conservative: because to be a conservative is to believe in personal responsibility, in accountability, in consequences for actions.


Consequences is an important word to conservatives. "Ideas have consequences" — the title of Richard Weaver's landmark 1948 book that helped launch the rebirth of the American right — became a rallying cry for intellectual conservatism. One of the reasons I became a conservative was that I came to believe that they, unlike liberals, were prepared to face squarely and realistically the consequences of bad ideas.


How many people became conservatives because they got sick and tired of liberals making excuses for personal failures? You can only blame society and define deviancy down for so long before folks with common sense realize that your philosophy is bankrupt and that your judgment is not to be trusted. The epitome of this sort of thing in recent politics was Bill Clinton's low-rent adultery, lies and perjury.


It was a given on the right that Mr. Clinton had no appreciable sense of personal honor. If he had, he would have resigned. But it did surprise many conservatives that there wasn't more public clamor for true executive accountability.


How times have changed — and how they have changed conservatives. After nearly two terms of the Bush administration, conservatism in power has rendered the concept of personal responsibility null and void. When Republicans in power behaved stupidly or dishonorably, with vastly more significant consequences for the nation and the world than anything that low-rent tomcat from Arkansas pulled ... nothing happened to them.


Some, like Gen. Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer and CIA director George Tenet, all of whom bear heavy responsibility for the Iraq debacle, even got the Medal of Freedom. Other Iraq failures, like Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, stuck around — and if not for the devastating loss of both houses of Congress last fall, Donald Rumsfeld would still be in charge at the Pentagon. His deputy, premier Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz, was rewarded for his incompetence with a plum posting at the World Bank, which he's just had wrenched from his disgraced but grasping fingers.


Alberto Gonzales, who as White House counsel helped pave the way for the Abu Ghraib scandal, moved on up to the Justice Department, where his special brand of managerial magic is destroying the department's reputation and morale. Naturally, the president stands fully behind him.


Heck of a job, the lot of you. You and your congressional Republican abettors have done a splendid job routing conservatism, and making it seem not like a plausible governing philosophy and approach to public life, but instead indecent drapery swaddling ambition in silken phrases, and incompetent hackery in velvety ideals.


What about the rest of us? Many conservatives are wailing and gnashing their teeth in anger over Mr. Bush's supposed betrayal of the base's long-suffering trust. Look, George W. Bush is the same president he's always been, except for one thing: he's no longer a winner. It takes no courage to stand up to him from the right today.


Where was the outrage when Mr. Bush and the GOP Congress were botching Iraq, running up the deficit, building his hackocracy, and suchlike — that is, when conservative protest might have done some good? Scapegoating Dubya is a cheap and easy way of avoiding our own culpability in this disaster.


Being conservative used to mean that you stood for certain political ideas, but it also meant that you stood for certain virtues, especially personal responsibility and old-fashioned honor. After these last six years, it's hard to know what conservatives stand for, except never having to say you're sorry.

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Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News and author of the forthcoming "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum).

PREVIOUSLY

05/08/07 : PBS darling gets abused by PC police
05/02/07 : Impervious to beauty and deadened to depravity
04/20/07 : What I know about being a loner
10/28/05 : How the conservatives crumble

© 2007, The Dallas Morning News, Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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