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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

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 January 21, 2008 / 14 Shevat 5768

Mostly decent politics

By Michael Barone


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | My campaign and election memories go back to 1960, when I was one of the few who backed John Kennedy at an election night party that my parents were throwing.


The early broadcasts had him winning big (they extrapolated that his gains in heavily Roman Catholic Connecticut would be matched across the mostly Protestant country), and I was too young to stay up for the dramatic conclusion.


Two years later, as a freshman at Harvard, I went into Boston and saw a fresh-faced Edward Kennedy on the night of his Senate primary victory. In 1965, I ventured to New York to report for the Harvard Crimson on the race for mayor of New York. At John Lindsay's election night headquarters, I urged the guard to let novelist Norman Mailer into the press and VIP section at the front of the room (maybe not the right judgment).


I have many memories of campaigns, too — of bitterly cold, dark winter mornings as I got into rental cars in Iowa and New Hampshire, and, consulting the maps as I went, drove to the first campaign stops of the day. Of being part of the crowd at the Carpenter Hotel (now an old folks' home) backing Eugene McCarthy the Saturday night before the 1968 New Hampshire primary, sensing for the first time that he could win (he actually finished second, but he forced Lyndon Johnson out of the race). Of tracking Bill Clinton after Gennifer Flowers went public to jam-packed events in New Hampshire where he established himself as "the comeback kid" (another second-place finish that amounted to a win).


Or of meeting George McGovern's 22-year-old pollster Pat Caddell in his office in Cambridge in 1972, shortly after the publication of my first Almanac of American Politics. Working with my boss Peter Hart in the 1974 cycle, when our Democratic clients seemed to be winning everywhere. And sitting down with him the week before the 1980 election and, looking at each race, calculating whether Republicans had a chance to win a majority in the Senate.


They did, we concluded, but they wouldn't, because they would have to win almost all the close races, and that never happens. But it happened in 1980, and again in 1986, and in 2002 and 2006, as well.


In the 1980s, I remember a young Republican backbencher named Newt Gingrich prophesying that the Republicans would win control of the House and explaining just how. He was right, finally, in 1994, but not before being wrong in several previous election cycles.


Campaigns and elections are mysterious things, predictable in many respects but also full of surprises, and never more so than in this wild and woolly cycle. Character plays an ineluctable role, and we come to know pretty well our candidates' strengths and weaknesses (which are often the same thing: Bill Clinton's fluency-slipperiness; George W. Bush's steadfastness-stubbornness).


Yet it's hard for citizens of a nation with 303 million people to judge the character of candidates most will never get a chance to talk with. We get buyer's remorse during campaigns and presidencies. Think of our reactions against Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, both Bushes and, at least as to character if not competence, both Clintons.


The classic accounts of American campaigns are Theodore H. White's four "Making of the President" books, from 1960 to 1972. White was part of a generation of journalists who got their start in World War II and thought their role was to celebrate our nation and our leaders. He was a fine reporter who did not ignore practical and even tawdry politics, but his tone was uplifting. His winning candidates were fine and noble, his losers decent though limited.


After Watergate, White felt betrayed by Nixon and wrote a mea culpa volume. Political journalism took a turn toward exposure rather than celebration, toward cynicism rather than awe.


But none of the fine campaign books written since have sold in anything like the numbers of White's volumes. Cynicism prevails but doesn't sell. Ronald Reagan, who was of Teddy White's generation, and who voted for 12 winning presidential candidates and only four losers in his active adult life, knew about the tawdry things yet believed there was something noble about our politics. Maybe we should feel that way, too. After all these years, I think I do.

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.

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