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Dec. 2, 2008
Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
Dec. 1, 2008
Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings
Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?
Nov. 28, 2008
Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be
Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?
Nov. 26, 2008
Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership
Andrea Simantov:
Shades of life
Nov. 25, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence
The Kosher Gourmet
by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!
Nov. 24, 2008
Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'
Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends
Nov. 21, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?
Caroline B. Glick:
Civilization walks the plank
Nov. 20, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto
Nov, 19, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality
Elliot B. Gertel:
'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?
Nov, 18, 2008
Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason
Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?
Nov, 17, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason
Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?
Nov, 14, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia
Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead
Nov, 13, 2008
Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic
The Kosher Gourmet
by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla
Nov, 12, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers
Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks
Nov, 11, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?
Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate
Nov, 10, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?
Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist
Nov, 7, 2008
Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality
Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy
Nov, 6, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism
The Kosher Gourmet
By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes
Nov, 5, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors
Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie
Nov, 4, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law
Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East
Nov, 3, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?
Jonathan Tobin:
Was He Wrong About Everything?
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!)
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Jewish World Review
July 18, 2008
/ 15 Tamuz, 5768
Originally, the question about Obama was: Who is he? Now it's: Who the heck does he think he is?
By
Charles Krauthammer
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap called "a Europe whole and free"?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule it was pointed out that he was not yet president induced him to take it down.
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall I'm no expert on this Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
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