Home
In this issue
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
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 Oct. 30, 2007 / 18 Mar-Cheshvan 5768

Barack Obama on Barack Obama

By Rich Lowry


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When it comes to self-reflection, Barack Obama is an overachiever. At age 46, he has already written two memoirs when most people in public life — sometime at the end of their career — will be lucky to write one.


So far, what Obama seems set to get out of his presidential campaign is yet another memoir — this one an agonized, deeply personal account of how his campaign went nowhere despite all the media hoopla, crowds and fundraising. It turns out that voters aren't as interested in Barack Obama as Barack Obama is.


Like Jacob grappling with the archangel Gabriel, Obama has been wrestling with his own conscience the entire campaign and has come up lame. He has engaged in a running commentary on whether the tactics of his own campaign — down to specific press releases — live up to his standard of audacious hopefulness. Left unclear is why anyone else besides Barack Obama should care.


The insular, self-obsessed campaign of her chief rival is one of the reasons Hillary Clinton has had as good a 90-day run as anyone in presidential politics in recent memory. She still has a race on her hands in Iowa, but she leads there after trailing most of the year, and more than doubles Obama's support in national polls, where he has slipped as low as 17 percent.


All year, Obama has offered voters airy cliches about hope, change and bipartisanship, and assurances that he personally embodies all of the above. He ended a typically precious ad in Iowa: "I approved this message to ask you to believe, not just in my ability to bring real change in Washington. I'm asking you to believe in yours." OK, but what sort of change exactly?


The Obama campaign finally has realized that campaigns here in the real world are won on what consultants call "contrasts." So it trotted out Obama to tell New York Times reporters that he will soon begin attacking Clinton, the same assurance he gave to The Washington Post two months ago. The Times interview featured Obama discoursing on his favorite campaign topic: the ethics and processes of his own campaign.


Obama has indeed been on the attack lately, only maladroitly. He is hitting Clinton for having the same position as he does on Iran. He favors designating the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization and placing more sanctions on Iran, as does Clinton. The difference is that Clinton voted for a sense of the Senate resolution endorsing those measures, a resolution Obama has condemned as "dangerous." While Clinton was in the Senate negotiating out of the resolution language Democrats thought went too far, Obama was someplace else, too busy spreading hope even to vote on a measure he says might drag us to war with Iran.


Obama particularly objects to language in the resolution saying that it's a "critical national interest of the United States" to keep Iran from creating a Hezbollah-like force in Iraq. Obama himself has said that it "is in our national interest to prevent" Iran from doing that. At bottom, Obama seems to believe that Congress shouldn't say things that he thinks are true, lest the Bush administration take comfort in it. How divisive, not to mention schizophrenic.


His other avenue of attack on Clinton is that she's vague about her plans to keep Social Security solvent. She supports a favorite Washington placeholder, a bipartisan commission. He's upfront about his support of increased payroll taxes. Hillary is dodgy about it because she's thinking about running in a general election, something Obama doesn't have to worry about overmuch.


Maybe he'll yet revive. No path to the nomination is ever as smooth as Hillary Clinton's looks to be right now. But Obama likely will go the way of that other earnest liberal, Bill Bradley, who high-mindedly let himself be run over by Al Gore in 2000. Oh, well. It'll be a great book.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment by clicking here.

Rich Lowry Archives

© 2007 King Features Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works