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Oct. 13, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient

Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

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!)

Jewish World Review July 26, 2007 / 11 Menachem-Av, 5767

The Rube at YouTube

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The other night when I watched the Democratic presidential candidates participate in what they presumed to call a "debate," I wondered anew about the failure of one of my political coinages to catch on. The debate was sponsored by CNN and what is called YouTube, which is essentially an agglutination of home videos filmed for and by that preposterous mass of shut-ins who sit in their underwear day and night glued to the Internet. More than a dozen of these sad sacks filmed their mainly ignorant questions, and a CNN talking head then directed the inquiries to those Democrats who aspire to the responsibilities of a Roosevelt or a Kennedy. The questions bespoke the questioners' gloom or indignation or narcissism or infantile stupidity, and occasionally all of the above. Not one of the questioners struck me as a normal American.


The "debate" brought to mind the 2004 presidential race, when the Democrats catered mainly to the kind of patheticos that now apparently gravitate to YouTube. Obviously, the Democrats will cater to them again. Now I am sure that there are millions of Democrats who are normal Americans: hardworking, cheerful, can-do types. When one of their greatest political leaders intoned his famous line about America only having "to fear fear itself," such Democrats — and Republicans, too — took heart and rolled up their sleeves, even in an economic depression.


Today we are living through almost three decades of hardly broken economic boom. The products we buy and often rely on would be considered by earlier Americans luxuries or miracles or both. Our health has never been better. Racism and intolerance are in decline. What was lamented 30 years ago as "the urban crisis" has been replaced by peaceful prosperous cities.


Yet there are still these sullen, angry, self-absorbed citizens carping with their Democratic presidential candidates, as though they were living in 1968. Not one candidate corrected them. Every one attempted to propitiate them. Some, for instance Sen. Hillary Clinton, just riled them up. Who are these misfits?


That brings me to my coinage of a few years back. In 2004, the Democratic presidential candidates were courting the same bellyachers. They seemed to comprise a core component of the Democratic electorate. I called them the "moron vote." For some reason the term did not catch on. Maybe it will this time.


The night of the Democratic "debate" one YouTubist appeared on-screen asking the following question (she was fully dressed): "If I can go out into any state and get the same triple-grande, nonfat, no-foam vanilla latte from Starbucks, why can't I go to any state and vote the same way?" Now this YouTubist obviously is a sophisticate when it comes to ordering coffee. Yet I submit that when she votes, or for that matter when she pronounces on politics, she is a moron.


Another YouTubist appeared on his home video strumming a guitar and singing about the tax code. No hint of alcohol or prohibited substances was detectable. Then he asked the aspiring presidents whether "one of y'all" would arrange a pardon for his recent speeding violation. Another misfit asked whether the candidates would support paying reparations to the heirs of American slaves. All the candidates handled this question gingerly, and one actually agreed that his Treasury Department would pony up. Sen. Clinton was asked about her womanliness, and Sen. Barack Obama was asked whether he is "authentically black."


Recently in a Wall Street Journal symposium on blogging, Tom Wolfe observed that "one by one, Marshall McLuhan's wackiest-seeming predictions come true. Forty years ago, he said that modern communications technology would turn the young into tribal primitives who pay attention not to objective 'news' reports but only to what the drums say."


"And there you have blogs," Wolfe continued. "The universe of blogs is a universe of rumors, and the tribe likes it that way."


With YouTube we have more than a universe of rumors. It is a universe of fears, angers, threats and megalomaniacal fantasies — and the tribe likes it that way. Or I should say the Democratic candidates like it that way. Not one objected to the indignity of the CNN-YouTube "debate." All hope to lead America in time of war.

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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