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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Sept. 4, 2009 / 15 Elul 5769

Slip-siding toward nasty Sept.

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | First-term presidents, like congressmen on the run and baseball teams contending for the pennant, have to get serious after Labor Day. They're all running out of the margin where mistakes are not always fatal.


Frightened congressmen, who will be returning to Washington all shook up from facing the music of angry and resentful voters back home, are desperate to find a little reassurance. But there is none. Their mantra for September is "slippage," as in, "my prospects for re-election may be slipping away." Going home to look for a job is the congressional fate worse than death.


President Obama, reveling in his reputation as Mr. Cool, is pursued by angry demons of his own, demons mostly called "independents." Everybody's public-opinion polls show the Obama approval numbers among independents -- the crucial percentage in every election -- slipping for the first time below 50 percent. Rasmussen puts it under 40. The dilemma for both the president and his Democrats is that whatever the president does to help himself hurts his congressional allies, whatever the congressmen do to help themselves damages the president.


The president must get something from Congress that he can call "health-care reform," even if it's only a bottle of aspirin for every third family in America. Asking Congress to enact a step toward full government takeover of American medicine is asking congressmen to commit suicide. As popular as this might be with their constituents, it's not likely. The discontent of summer becomes the focused rage of autumn.


When the going gets tough the president always lays a bet on his teleprompter, and Mr. Obama will spend the weekend clearing his throat at Camp David while his aides tune the teleprompter's chips and diodes for the big speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night. Such invitations by Congress are usually reserved for declarations of war or a welcome back from an assassination attempt; the last such speech to a joint session was George W. Bush's reassurance to the nation just after 9/11.


This Congress is happy to oblige. Maybe the president and his teleprompter at last have something to say about a rescue. What could be more solemn, more grave and more important than saving a few congressional hides?


With his sinking approval numbers, the president has little standing to ask Congress for much if the members feel the ground slipping away. Most of them, particularly the freshmen, still don't understand what happened. They arrived in town in January with enormous majorities, ready for a cakewalk with a president widely believed capable of delivering "change." No one seemed to care what that "change" actually was. When his critics mocked him as "the messiah" many of his awed admirers in press and tube took the accolade seriously. Maybe he really was divine, sent from heaven or at least from Olympus. How could anyone or anything stop the unstoppable Democratic tide?


How indeed? The Republicans were lost in the swamp, with neither a hero nor a white horse in sight. There was no one there to pick up a falling flag, to sound a message and find a way to make it sing. What happened next was scariest of all for the Democrats. With Republicans looking for the fainting couch and the smelling salts, the public took charge of the debate over health care and started banging hard heads together.


Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi looked over the landscape and, where others saw democracy at work in all its messy glory, saw only hoodlums, brownshirts and swastikas. The more the media derided the protests, the stronger and louder they grew.


Congressmen at bay have always retreated for cover at home. This time they will scramble into Washington looking for relief, like that banged-up Union army racing for cover after a congressional picnic at Manassas. This is the audience waiting for Barack Obama, and the angry public will be listening along with Congress for something new.


The president, still in love with the sound of his voice even if nobody else thrills to it in the same old way, follows a tough act after the smoke and noise of the town halls. Will he get the wingnuts on his left in campaign mode by telling the Republicans to drop dead, as many of his wingnuts demand he do? Will he concede to sanity and common sense, and drop, at least for now, the scheme for government takeover of health care? The days dwindle down to a precious few, and so do his options.

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 emeritus of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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