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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 Nov. 14, 2006 / 23 Mar-Cheshvan, 5767

Both parties must adhere to principles

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There's a time for every season under heaven. A time to win and a time to lose. But it's never a time to forget principles. And if you don't forget said principles, you're a winner even when you lose.


That's the lesson of Sen. Rick Santorum, who lost his race for re-election, but has a bright future and a loving family, and offers a lesson to us all.


In a farewell letter to his supporters, Santorum said, "People have asked me why I talked about unpopular things like the war ... in this campaign. They asked, why didn't you just talk about the projects you delivered or the things that you accomplished? ... My answer is that those are the things in the past, and what leaders are supposed to do is to talk about things that our country confronts in the future ... And I did, and I'm very proud of that. I do not rescind a word because those words are words that this country was not receptive to hear. ... They are going to continue to hear those words from me."


As Democrats celebrate their victory and the White House reaches out to them, those pictures of bipartisan comity will need to have something real behind them.


"Real" doesn't mean Nancy Pelosi explaining that the war in Iraq not as a war but as a "situation." "Real" means — at minimum — calling it what it is — a war. (And a war on Islamic fascism, as Santorum has called it, wouldn't hurt either.)


Don't get me wrong: I don't think the Democrats are going to get us killed. Well, at least not on purpose. But taking the wrong lessons from this past election would be dangerously wrong. Former Texas Republican Congressman Tom DeLay offered some excellent advice earlier this year when he resigned from Congress, wise advice for the folks in D.C. — especially the losing party — to remember: "It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle." We believe different things. But we can have honest, open debates in this free country. And we should.


On the morning after the election, President Bush reached out to the Election Day winners. He handed them their top wish — the head of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He also dissed Karl Rove, considered one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in some left-wing circles, for not having had brains enough to pull off this election. Some of us hated the timing of the Rumsfeld exit — making a great patriot the convenient fall guy — but we understood the rationale. And as for Rove, he has enough electoral victories under his belt that he can take the executive ribbing.


But what we didn't need that day was a presidential nod to one of the most unfortunate wins of the year. Bush said, of Santorum's opponent, Bob Casey Jr., that "Senator-elect Casey ... ran a very strong race."


Casey's race was not "strong." What it was was smart: Casey was a weak candidate and knew it, so he ran a campaign based on not saying much and not taking positions. His winning strategy was to not even try. But while it was a good strategy, it was bad civics: It said that vacuity is better than leadership. One hopes that Casey won't be the empty suit he was during the campaign, and that the president and his Republican colleagues will work with him on important issues. But Casey didn't deserve this presidential shout-out.


And Santorum, a praiseworthy public servant, deserved better.


I don't relate this in a spirit of bitterness, but as a word of caution — as a reminder that some people who had to leave Capitol Hill left behind words that should be heeded. Leadership, strong principles: Post 9/11, no party should try to govern without them.

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