Home
In this issue
Nov. 25, 2009
Daniel Pipes: Islamism 2.0
JWisdom.com: No God … No You! Know God, Know You! with Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (8 minutes)
Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
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)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 29, 2008 / 22 Shevat 5768

Camelot restored, for one day only

By Wesley Pruden


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When it rains, it's sometimes only a drizzle. Barack Obama basked in a drizzle yesterday, but it probably felt like a downpour to Bill Clinton. First he loses South Carolina — his surrogate was not just defeated, but trounced — and now he learns that he's not America's first black president anymore.


Democrats are counting on the Restoration in November, but it's not yet clear who or what is being restored. If Bill Clinton was once the first black president, Barack Obama would be the new, improved black president. Not too black, not too white, but just right.


We have the word of novelist Toni Morrison, who stunned herself by choosing Mr. Obama over the man she once said is "blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime." But that was then. "I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion," she said yesterday in a letter to the senator rendered in purple prose, "that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom." Or at least smarts.


Teddy Kennedy spoke in an even deeper shade of purple: "Through Barack, I believe we will move beyond the politics of fear and personal destruction and unite our country with the politics of common purpose ... [and] close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group and straight against gay."


Implicit in everything said in yesterday's round of celebrity endorsements was the subtle message of racism rebuked. "If I had made that comparison [of Barack Obama] to Jesse Jackson," Don Imus said yesterday, "I have a feeling that I'd be talking to Al Sharpton again." Preacher Al himself told President Bill to "shut up." Suddenly the nation's first formerly black president is just another unreconstructed Southern governor. His great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier, after all. Wasn't Orval Faubus one of his early mentors? (He's learning how the purveyors of phony piety think.)


Everyone is piling on. Ralph Nader, the Harold Stassen of the minor leagues, scolded the ex-prez for insensitivity to the public nannies and accused him of slighting the Soup Nazis of the agencies regulating food, drugs, automobiles, railroads, banks and just about everybody else. Who knew?


But yesterday was like old times for the Kennedys. Fawning was the pose of the day, and the old senator glowed with the sweet remembrance of wastrel youth. He could afford to, because generations of voters have no remembrance of Camelot and the sentimental drivel that thrived in every newsroom, every faculty lounge. Teddy is remembered, when he is remembered at all, as "that old geezer who threw a girl off a bridge, or whatever." What's left of the Kennedy dynasty, which actually produced only half as many presidents as the Bush and the Adams families did, lives only in the film vaults of the History Channel. Family solidarity has been sundered by the passage of time; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of Bobby Kennedy and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, still likes Hillary (if not necessarily Bill). So does her brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Endorsements by Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and the American Idol follow next week.


Bill Clinton, who might usefully take Al Sharpton's pastoral advice to shut up, nevertheless has one of the shrewdest political minds of his time. His assessment of the realities is not lost on the wise heads of his party. Barack Obama won 80 percent or so of the black vote in South Carolina, which in turn was about 60 percent of the Democratic vote. But he won only 25 percent of the white Democrats. The Clintons made their point, a point harsh but nonetheless real.

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

JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Wesley Pruden Archives

© 2007 Wesley Pruden

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