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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!)

Jewish World Review April 15, 2008 / 10 Nissan 5768

The high price of a holy sneer

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Barack Obama's preacher troubles continue to stalk his campaign. Now it's his own preachin' that's causing him grief.


There he stood, lean, lanky and buff, as if modeling one of his $3,000 bespoke suits in a fashionable Pacific Heights salon in San Francisco, quoting party scripture and winning a full measure of nods, chuckles and cheers from what passed as the amen corner. These were his kind of folks. The rich, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, are very different from you and me. Then the party's most beautiful person dropped an aside that the beautiful people of San Francisco could appreciate:


"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania," he said, "and like a lot of small towns in the Middle West, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them." Approving nods all around, with clucks of admiration for the bravery of the man just in from safari to darkest Timbuktu, or at least Wilkes-Barre. "And it's not surprising then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."


Mr. Obama speaks of religion (if not necessarily guns) with more respect and reverence at other times and in other places. When he talks of how the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of all people, led him to faith in Jesus, we must give his affirmation full weight, for only G-d can look into a man's heart. (We must pray that one day soon someone will lead the blasphemer and teller of malicious tales to Christ.) But such condescending sneering at the heartfelt faith of others, those who unapologetically "cling to the old rugged cross" as their Ebenezer in the storms that inevitably buffet us all, is strange, indeed, in a man who speaks of his own faith with practiced passion and eloquence.


The senator is a smart cookie, but he forgot that he's not campaigning in those easy days of yesteryear, when a pol could say one thing to flatter the grit of the God-fearing yeomen of Scranton, and say quite another in San Francisco, where a culture of sophistication and pretense rests on the twin pillars of sodomy and secularism. What happens in San Francisco definitely does not stay in San Francisco, and a careful pol knows better than to scandalize Scranton when taking the waters in San Francisco. To no one's surprise, a poll out yesterday shows Hillary Clinton regaining her 20-point lead over Barack Obama in the crucial Pennsylvania primary, now only a week away.


The Obama blooper was more about his disdain for religious faith than scorn for guns and the embittered small-town Americans who own them. Because the senator knows this well, he spent the weekend trying to divert attention from his sneer at religious faith by "clarifying" and "refining" his observation that hard times had made small-town America "bitter." The senator appears to have spent too much time in the pews at Trinity United Church, acquiring a jaundiced view of the world beyond his own. The senator concedes that his words were "poorly chosen," but a lot of voters, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, will conclude that the words he chose describe exactly what the senator actually thinks. It could be a bitter epitaph for a campaign.


Hillary continues to pound the man from Illinois, exploiting his fumble with the grim intensity of a linebacker. This fits perfectly her strategy of relentless pursuit of the theme that nice guy or not, powerful preacher or not, "Obama can't win." Shady associations on the South Side of Chicago, a far-left agenda still hidden in the shadows, a confusing life story riddled with troubling contradictions, his wide and inexplicable selection of bizarre mentors, all render him vulnerable, probably fatally, when the real hitting begins after the conventions.


The label "can't win" terrifies the best of politicians. "They can say you are a liar, a cheat, a crackpot and a licentious old man," the late Mike Monroney, a wise old senator from Oklahoma, once said, "and most politicians don't care. But if they say you can't win, you're through.

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

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