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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review June 1, 2006 / 5 Sivan, 5766

Swiftboating becomes a hate term

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | As we watch the left of the Democratic Party pressing its case to return to the top of the heap in American politics, or at least evade the fate of the dodo, we have ever more evidence validating an insight on which I stake my reputation as a political seer. To wit: Partisan politics more often falls under the professional expertise of the psychiatrist than that of the political scientist. A learned shrink can often tell us more about a political issue than any other professional, not excluding a swami or a voodoo priest.


Consider the ongoing controversy over Sen. Jean-Francois Kerry's military service in the faraway Vietnam War. You doubt that the controversy is ongoing? Just last Sunday, a front-page story in The New York Times reported that some of Kerry's supporters during his ill-fated 2004 presidential campaign are endeavoring to prove him a war hero with an unblemished record of heroism. Their targets are the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.


These Swifties, as they are called, are the Vietnam vets who claimed that when they served with Kerry they found him to be a self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent showoff. All insist he exaggerated his feats of heroism, and some testify that he lied about his wounds and heroics. Many American voters were persuaded.


Now why is this debate being launched? Any innocent observer who watched the showboating senator from Massachusetts bungle his 2004 presidential campaign must know that he is today a self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent showoff. Why would he not have been one as a youth, back in the late 1960s, when he brought camera equipment into the jungles to film himself at war?


After an early exit from military service, he proceeded to follow the fashion of the times and oppose the war, appearing before a Senate committee in 1971 to accuse the American military of systematically committing war crimes. Then, just over three decades later, this strange man chose to make his Vietnam experience a major theme of his presidential candidacy. This is a matter for a seasoned psychiatrist to explain. To the rest of us, it appears as egotism at the outer reaches of sanity.


Yet this attack on the Swift Boat Veterans is not contained to Kerry's supporters. The senator himself has been obsessive about the Swifties since their ads against him did his campaign so much damage. As David Holman reported in the May issue of The American Spectator: "A year and a half after he lost the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry can't get enough of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. No matter the occasion, he (Kerry) doesn't miss an opportunity to parade his campaign wounds however incoherently and obsessively."

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Kerry has complained of the "Swift Boat-style Republican attack ads" in fund-raising appeals on behalf of other candidates. He invoked the Swifties in opposing the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. When asked if he had received contributions from the disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Kerry snapped, "That's another of their Swift Boat-style tactics where they throw up the mud and stick it."


Holman reports that Kerry has resorted to these slurs on the Swifties in eight other fund-raising appeals. Moreover, in the asylum that is the Democratic Party's Angry Left, "Swift Boat" has become a verb and an adjective. The left-wing magazine Mother Jones writes of the Bush administration "Swiftboating their enemies." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admonishes against the dread Republicans' employment of "Swift Boat tactics." In the Kultursmog's parlance of hate terms, "Swiftboat" is about to join such terms as McCarthyism and McCarthyite.


Now we read that the campaign against the Swifties is going to gain momentum. The sorehead Kerry supporters have joined together in a group called the Patriot Project. It will seek out the Swifties and scrutinize their complaints against Kerry. It will also support opponents of the war in Iraq and visit editorial offices to make the case for such veterans as Rep. John P. Murtha, a Vietnam War vet who now opposes the Iraq War.


All of this sounds like political harassment to me. But as the shrinks are wont to say, "If it is true for you, it is true for you." For a certitude, the left wing of the Democratic Party believes that whatever it believes is true. Kerry believes he would be president today if he had not been Swiftboated. He has hired a researcher to prove from naval archives that he was in Cambodia three decades ago for a few hours when the Nixon administration said he was not supposed to be there.


What does this prove? I think it proves that beyond being a self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent showoff, this guy is a nut. Yet I leave all this to the professionals.

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 Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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