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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 23, 2009 / 1 Tamuz 5769

Reasons for Cautious Optimism

By David Limbaugh


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | American freedom lovers studying the reign of Obama have been in a constant state of anxiety over the administration's assault on capitalism and America's very solvency, its thuggish political style, its PR war against America's history, its radical social policies and its Carteresque foreign policy. But for the first time, there are signs that America is starting to wake up.


The latest daily Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll has Obama slipping into negative net approval territory, with more Americans strongly disapproving of his performance (34 percent) than strongly approving (33 percent). Just 54 percent of voters say they at least somewhat approve. Even the Gallup Poll reports a decline in his approval rating to a new low, albeit still at 58 percent. The decline results from a drop in support among independents, as well as Republicans — but not Democrats.


Can you imagine what these numbers would be if the mainstream media weren't invested in Obama's success or, better yet, if moderate Democrats weren't still blinded by their lingering excitement over regaining the presidency and their vulnerability to Obama's cultish aura?


But it's not just the polling data that are encouraging. Obama's blame-it-on-Bush mantra is starting to wear thin. Another Rasmussen survey found that 39 percent of voters now think our economic problems are caused more by Obama's policies — a 12-point jump from just a month ago.


Also, support for Obama's most dangerous agenda item, nationalized health care, is waning. A recent ABC News//Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey indicates that 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. Worse (for Obama), congressional Democrats have warned that his plan is in jeopardy because its projected costs range between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office scoring, and it would not even reduce by half the number of uninsured (the fraudulent impetus behind the administration's manufactured crisis). Just wait until further damaging truths come to light about the horrors awaiting America's health care system if it is nationalized, including government rationing and dramatically lower-quality care.


The White House is showing signs of stress. We see increasing defensiveness from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, whose daily dips into incoherence are no longer even newsworthy. Asked to respond to long-delayed criticism from President Bush over Obama's national security and domestic policies, Gibbs trotted out, yet again, the administration's mindless retort, "We kept score last November, and we won."


But Gibbs outdid himself when he was unable to name a solitary nation that has benefited from a single-payer health care system. While Obama steadfastly maintains he is not angling for a public monopoly, everyone knows that is the inevitable result — and intent — of his plan.


Obama received another setback last week, when Congress repudiated his feckless policy on the Iranian crisis with a resounding 405-1 vote in favor of a resolution of solidarity with the Iranian protestors. Even the Democrats didn't have the guts to go on record endorsing Obama's positions of moral equivalence and opportunistic passivity.


I can't help but believe that Obama will be his own worst enemy in his efforts to reverse the trend in his popularity as the disconnect between support for his policy agenda and his personal popularity continues to erode. Every indication is that he is a stubborn ideologue ill-suited to make policy adjustments when reality continues to gobsmack his purblind vision.


While Obama resembles Jimmy Carter in some respects, he is starkly different in his aversion to attend to details, preferring to bask in his broader vision and assume — narcissistically — that his force of will alone will bring about the results he seeks.


Consider: He has refused to backtrack on his commitment to close Gitmo, despite overwhelming public disapproval of the policy and no plans for prisoner relocation. He clings to the fantasy that effeminate overtures to the world's thuggish dictators will entice them to behave. He is philosophically impervious to the 100 percent failure rate of socialized medicine in world history and to the mounting research and expert opinion contradicting his intractable position on man-made global warming. His so-called stimulus money — the limited percentage of it that was front-ended — is being allocated disproportionately at the state level to relatively unproductive rural projects at the behest of some local politicians, who have more incentive to bring home the bacon than conform to Obama's directives toward shovel-ready projects.


As more time passes and Obama's ability to scapegoat his predecessor declines further, along with his apparent charisma, more Americans will see just how different Obama's worldview is from theirs — and they'll begin to see more clearly the woeful ineffectiveness and destructiveness of his policies.


Wishful thinking perhaps — but that's better than I had a few weeks ago.

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David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Comment by clicking here.


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