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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
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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?
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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!
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Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'
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Nov. 21, 2008
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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 8, 2008
/ 5 Tamuz 5768
No season for the billy goats
By
Wesley Pruden
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
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The doldrums are hard upon us, and even billy goats are choking on trivia.
The New York Times is all atwitter over John McCain's mispronunciation of "Lexington," as in the Lexington Project, an energy plan and just the stuff to send the multitudes with attitude into the altitude of summer lassitude, where there's not enough sweet tea to soothe all the parched lips, dry throats and other afflictions of those foolish enough to join the English in the midday sun.
"In a town meeting in Cincinnati the [other] day," the New York Times reports, "Mr. McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town where, he noted, 'Americans asserted their independence once before.' He called it "the Lexiggdon Project, and twice tried to fix his error, before flipping the name ('Project Lexington') in subsequent references."
Mr. McCain, the newspaper discovered, is battling "a nemesis, the Teleprompter." If he can't whip a Teleprompter, the subtext surely goes, how can we expect him to whip a jack Muslim plotting a mission for the medium-sized Satan?
By his own admission, the one-time fighter pilot is not a great orator. He's slight of stature, often half-hidden behind a lectern, reads his lines and often not very well, and here's the point of the Page One story: "Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, can often dazzle on stage." You could ask any dazzled reporter on the campaign plane.
He's right about Sen. Obama. The man can keep an audience awake and ready to rock and roll. He's helped by the fact that the generation most dazzled has rarely been inside a church, never heard a preacher at a brush-arbor revival, raising the hair on the backs of a thousand necks, with soaring oratory to chase angels across the rafters of a rough-hewn tabernacle or rustling the tent flaps to the tune of "Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound" and the plaintive notes of "Just As I Am (Without One Plea)." But as good as Sen. Obama is, there may be a preacher or two in any good-sized city who could show him how to lift a crowd of sinners aloft to touch the face of G-d.
Once upon a time, you didn't have to go to church to hear oratory like this. The politicians could do it, too. Billy Graham once remarked that Bill Clinton got the gift, and would have been great on the sawdust. But the great evangelist could have been talking about Bubba's gift for recognizing sin when he sampled it. Opportunity knocks.
Sitting presidents, like presidential candidates, are often prey to tangling their tongues in hot syntax. President Eisenhower was famous for garbling an answer to the easiest question, usually a question he didn't want to answer. Sometimes a garble is the most effective reply. John F. Kennedy might not have frightened Fidel Castro, but he set a lot of teeth on edge with his pronunciation of "Cuber." Jimmy Carter, like George W., never mastered (among a lot of other things) how to pronounce "nuclear."
But it's not so much the mispronunciations and verbal tics that occupy the Gaffe Patrol as the determination of the chattering class to eliminate the colorful and the clever in candidates' speeches and remarks. The Gaffe Patrol is determined to make the politics as dull and boring as their own copy, you might say. Mr. McCain's aides, who take what they read in the newspaper and hear on television seriously even if nobody else does, are doing all they can to teach him how to put everyone to sleep. John McCain's clever dismissal of Barack Obama's ability to give good speech - "With his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, Sen. Obama has been very successful" - sent aides into passionate paralysis. They want no more wisecracks, no more biting sarcasm, no more humor. They think what the galleries want are position papers, policy reviews and learned discussion of worthwhile initiatives.
Mr. McCain might take a cue from one of the great Southern hams of yesteryear who had aroused the ire of his opponent, a starchy Presbyterian elder, and the temperance ladies with his fondness for a nip of freshly distilled corn. "I want everybody who has never never slipped behind the barn for a nip to warm a cold day to vote for my opponent," he said. "If you can recall the taste of good corn whisky, vote for me." A lot of those folks would have had trouble with "Lexxiggdon," too. They might not regard it as a felony.
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JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Wesley Pruden Archives
© 2007 Wesley Pruden
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