
 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 5, 2008
/ 5 Elul 5768
The Unexamined Life
By
Linda Chavez
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The biggest story to emerge from the Republican National Convention was the media's effort to destroy Gov. Sarah Palin. Members of the Fourth Estate behaved more like a Democratic fifth column this week than they did like honest reporters. Palin's stunningly effective speech Wednesday night showed they will not easily take her down but their malicious attacks on Gov. Palin's family prove that they will stop at nothing to achieve their aim. Since when is the private life of a 17-year-old fair game in a political campaign? Apparently only when that 17-year-old's mom is a Republican candidate.
Make no mistake the press outed Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Reporters descended on Alaska following vile and false accusations on Internet blogs that Gov. Palin faked her own pregnancy and that her daughter was actually baby Trig's mother. These lies weren't only spread by left-wing fanatics but by journalists like Andrew Sullivan, whose blog appears on Atlantic.com, the online version of what was once one of the most respected magazines in the country. As the rumors got uglier, the McCain campaign decided they had no choice but to reveal to the world intimate details about Gov. Palin's daughter. And the media stood by their decision to muckrake by arguing for the public's right to know.
If you don't think this reflects media bias, contrast this insatiable prying into Bristol Palin's life with the press's lack of curiosity about the behavior of another 17-year-old one whose story would seem to have more relevance to this year's presidential election.
In his memoir "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama describes his troubled teenaged years. "Pot had helped, and booze, maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack though," he recalls, though he admits he came close to trying heroin at the urging of a friend who shot up in front of him. He was deterred by the image "of an air bubble, shiny and round like a pearl, rolling quietly through my vein and stopping my heart," he says. "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man."
Obama's drug use went on for at least a few years, though he is noticeably vague in describing exactly when it began, how extensive it was, or when it ended. At least one of his friends was arrested for drug possession; another had a mental breakdown after one too many acid trips. But Obama has been reticent to reveal the extent of his illegal activities and the media haven't cared enough to pursue the question.
Past drug use by presidential candidates was considered a legitimate subject of inquiry for Bill Clinton (who, famously, "didn't inhale") and George W. Bush. News organizations devoted considerable investigative resources in 2000 to track down unsubstantiated rumors about Bush's alleged cocaine use and printed the accusation, even when there was no credible evidence that it was true. Yet those same news organizations treat Obama's admitted and apparently heavy youthful drug use as if it were off-limits.
What a candidate did as a young man even if it was illegal should not necessarily disqualify him from becoming president. But shouldn't we want to know a bit more than he's volunteered to date before we make a final judgment? Did Obama ever sell drugs to anyone? When was the last time he used cocaine? What other illegal drugs has he used? As an adult, has he been present when others were using illicit drugs?
Why is it reporters who were willing to pursue Bristol Palin, who isn't on the ballot, somehow think it is unseemly to ask Sen. Obama tough questions about his drug use? Oh, that was a long time ago, they'll argue. But a 1986 arrest for driving while impaired by Gov. Palin's husband not the candidate is somehow worthy of extensive front-page coverage?
The double standard is shocking but perhaps not to Sen. Obama. In his memoir, he gives the most telling explanation of how he has gotten away with avoiding discussions of his drug use. It was the same technique he used on his mother when she confronted him in his senior year of high school: "I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves."
With two months left to Election Day, it will be a test of the media's integrity to see if they devote as much time delving into Sen. Obama's drug use as they did into Bristol Palin's sex life.
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.
JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
Linda Chavez Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
|

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

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

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
|