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July 2, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person
Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya
July 1, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken
The Kosher Gourmet
by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts
June 30, 2009
Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?
Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief
June 29, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'
Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas
June 26, 2009
Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain
Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law
June 25, 2009
Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
Everything's Relative
June 24, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity
The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun
June 23, 2009
Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin
Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect
June 22, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm
N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?
June 19, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity
June 18, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
Everything's Relative
June 17, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …
June 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel
Richard Z. Chesnoff: Palestinians: Never Missing an Opportunity …
June 15, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'
Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed
June 12, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big
Caroline B. Glick:
Obama's High Commissioner
June 11, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President
Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers
Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos
June 10, 2009
Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world
The Kosher Gourmet
by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste
June 9, 2009
Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?
June 8, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?
Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past
Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?
June 5, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams
Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth
June 4, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock
The Kosher Gourmet
by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette
June 3, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action
June 2, 2009
Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
March 14, 2008
/ 7 Adar II 5768
The plain things nobody can say
By
Wesley Pruden
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We're doomed to a bitter, rancid presidential campaign, fraught with peril, and not just for John McCain. For Barack Obama, too. And let's not forget Hillary, as a lot of people are eager to do.
The Obama campaign, if not necessarily the man himself, seems determined to make tough questioning of the man and his qualifications off-limits. Mild, general criticism is OK, barely, but pressing too hard with the wrong questions is taken for racism, bigotry, fanaticism, zealotry and other forms of treachery. Once upon a time, presidential candidates labored mightily to find a log-cabin birthplace in their past, but some Democrats think they've come up with a candidate born in a manger.
As the sheen on the Obama image dissipates, as sheen surely will under the full weight of a presidential campaign, American voters will expect to indulge their right to say what they think about the candidates. If they must be ever-so-careful to criticize Barack Obama in the robust and rowdy way they feel free to criticize everybody else, reticence will quickly become resentment, and ultimately, just in time for November, revulsion. Sen. Obama deserves better.
Racism, the unpardonable sin in modern America, has made race the unmentionable subject, no matter how delicately broached or innocently discussed. Such good faith as the speaker may bring to the conversation no longer counts for very much. With her airy comment to a California newspaper, the Torrance Daily Breeze, suggesting that Barack Obama wouldn't be the marketing man's dream if he were not a black man, Geraldine Ferraro made herself a candidate for boiling in oil. (Extra-virgin olive oil, you might be tempted to say, if she were anyone but an Italian-American.) She concedes she was chosen by Walter Mondale for his running mate because she was a woman and what she actually said about the senator from Illinois was inartfully phrased: "If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
This is what you can hear, privately expressed by any number of prominent Democrats, some of them white and some of them black. The Clintons have done themselves and, more important, the nation ill by their desperate and not-so-subtle invocation of race. Barack Obama is not wholly innocent, either. Bubba has taken heat, for example, for describing Sen. Obama's description of his public record as "a fairy tale." This sounds at first hearing a cruel dig at gays, but no, it was taken as a racist taunt. We weren't told why.
Now two more prominent Democrats have entangled themselves in the snare that is the mark of the campaign. Mark Penn, the chief Clinton strategist, told reporters that "we believe the Pennsylvania primary will show that Hillary is ready to win, and that Sen. Obama really can't win the general election." That's one man's opinion, worth less than what Hillary's paying for it. He later tried to revise his remarks (but only congressmen get to do that, and only in the Congressional Record), saying that losing the Pennsylvania primary would raise questions about Sen. Obama's ability to win. Then Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, scoffed that there would be no "dream ticket" of Hillary and Obama, or of Obama and Hillary. "Take it from me," she said. "That won't be the ticket."
Knowing better, perhaps, she declined to say why. But she's probably reflecting the conventional unstated wisdom in Washington: You can't expect to break both the color line and the glass ceiling in one election. When someone asked the speaker what she thought of Geraldine Ferraro's earlier remarks, she replied: "It's important that perceptions be understood by the campaigns."
This is the kind of code speak we're all required to use. It's unfair to Barack Obama, it's unfair to his opponents whoever they are, and it's unfair to the rest of us. We'll know we've eliminated racism, the real thing, when we can all talk like grown-ups, in front of one another.
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.
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© 2007 Wesley Pruden
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