Jonathan Tobin: Defending the Right to a Jewish State Heather Hale: Compliment your kids without giving them big heads Megan Shauri: 10 ways you are ruining your own happiness Carolyn Bigda: 8 Best Dividend Stocks for 2015 Kiplinger's Personal Finance editors: 7 Things You Didn't Know About Paying Off Student Loans Samantha Olson: The Crucial Mistake 55% Of Parents Are Making At Their Baby's Bedtime Densie Well, Ph.D., R.D. Open your eyes to yellow vegetables The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon With its colorful cache of purples and oranges and reds, COLLARD GREEN SLAW is a marvelous mood booster --- not to mention just downright delish April 18, 2014 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Clarifying one of the greatest philosophical conundrums in theology Caroline B. Glick: The disappearance of US will Megan Wallgren: 10 things I've learned from my teenagers Lizette Borreli: Green Tea Boosts Brain Power, May Help Treat Dementia John Ericson: Trying hard to be 'positive' but never succeeding? Blame Your Brain The Kosher Gourmet by Julie Rothman Almondy, flourless torta del re (Italian king's cake), has royal roots, is simple to make, . . . but devour it because it's simply delicious April 14, 2014 Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer: Passover frees us from the tyranny of time Greg Crosby: Passing Over Religion Eric Schulzke: First degree: How America really recovered from a murder epidemic Georgia Lee: When love is not enough: Teaching your kids about the realities of adult relationships Cameron Huddleston: Freebies for Your Lawn and Garden Gordon Pape: How you can tell if your financial adviser is setting you up for potential ruin Dana Dovey: Up to 500,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver disease. New Treatment Has Over 90% Success Rate Justin Caba: Eating Watermelon Can Help Control High Blood Pressure The Kosher Gourmet by Joshua E. London and Lou Marmon Don't dare pass over these Pesach picks for Manischewitz! April 11, 2014 Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Silence is much more than golden Caroline B. Glick: Forgetting freedom at Passover Susan Swann: How to value a child for who he is, not just what he does Cameron Huddleston: 7 Financial Tasks You Should Tackle Right Now Sandra Block and Lisa Gerstner: How to Profit From Your Passion Susan Scutti: A Simple Blood Test Might Soon Diagnose Cancer Chris Weller: Have A Slow Metabolism? Let Science Speed It Up For You The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Whitefish Terrine: A French take on gefilte fish April 9, 2014 Jonathan Tobin: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame? Samuel G. Freedman: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau Jessica Ivins: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau Kim Giles: Asking for help is not weakness Kathy Kristof and Barbara Hoch Marcus: 7 Great Growth Israeli Stocks Matthew Mientka: How Beans, Peas, And Chickpeas Cleanse Bad Cholesterol and Lowers Risk of Heart Disease Sabrina Bachai: 5 At-Home Treatments For Headaches Baby charged with attempted murder The Kosher Gourmet by Daniel Neman Have yourself a matzo ball: The secrets bubby never told you and recipes she could have never imagined April 8, 2014 Hitler's Jewish wife? Mass murderer's mate would have made both deserving of death under Nazi law Lori Nawyn: At Your Wit's End and Back: Finding Peace Susan B. Garland and Rachel L. Sheedy: Strategies Married Couples Can Use to Boost Benefits David Muhlbaum: Smart Tax Deductions Non-Itemizers Can Claim Jill Weisenberger, M.S., R.D.N., C.D.E : Before You Lose Your Mental Edge Dana Dovey: Coffee Drinkers Rejoice! Your Cup Of Joe Can Prevent Death From Liver Disease Chris Weller: Electric 'Thinking Cap' Puts Your Brain Power Into High Gear From the Grave, Wife Captures Time, Love in a Bottle (2 minutes) The Kosher Gourmet by Marlene Parrish A gift of hazelnuts keeps giving --- for a variety of nutty recipes: Entree, side, soup, dessert April 4, 2014 Rabbi David Gutterman: The Word for Nothing Means Everything Charles Krauthammer: Kerry's folly, Chapter 3 Amy Peterson: A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children John Ericson: Older Women: Save Your Heart, Prevent Stroke Don't Drink Diet John Ericson: Why 50 million Americans will still have spring allergies after taking meds Cameron Huddleston: Best and Worst Buys of April 2014 Stacy Rapacon: Great Mutual Funds for Young Investors Sarah Boesveld: Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves The Kosher Gourmet by Sharon Thompson Anyone can make a salad, you say. But can they make a great salad? (SECRETS, TESTED TECHNIQUES + 4 RECIPES, INCLUDING DRESSINGS) April 2, 2014 Paul Greenberg: Death and joy in the spring Dan Barry: Should South Carolina Jews be forced to maintain this chimney built by Germans serving the Nazis? Mayra Bitsko: Save me! An alien took over my child's personality Frank Clayton: Get happy: 20 scientifically proven happiness activities Susan Scutti: It's Genetic! Obesity and the 'Carb Breakdown' Gene Lecia Bushak: Why Hand Sanitizer May Actually Harm Your Health Stacy Rapacon: Great Funds You Can Own for $500 or Less Cameron Huddleston: 7 Ways to Save on Home Decor The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Exploring ingredients as edible-stuffed containers (TWO RECIPES + TIPS & TECHINQUES)

Jewish World Review Jan 16, 2012/ 21Teves, 5772 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem By Dana Milbank http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Following Mitt Romney on the campaign trail is a painful yet familiar experience. Painful, because of the wince-inducing moments when you realize that, for all of Romney’s success in imitating human attributes, there remain glitches in the matrix that reveal him to be different from the rest of us. In the past few days alone, he claimed to take pleasure in firing people, expressed his phony fears about getting a “pink slip” from the job that swelled his wealth to nearly a quarter-billion dollars and asserted misleadingly that he worked an “entry-level” job after Harvard Business School. Romney further alleged that “I never thought I’d get involved in politics” — though he has been in politics for two decades. And he claimed that he didn’t seek reelection as Massachusetts governor because “that would be about me” — as if running for president, which he did instead, was a gesture of sacrifice and altruism. Romney, the conservative writer Jonah Goldberg argued this week, has an “ authentic inauthenticity problem.” And that is precisely why his struggle is so familiar. He is the political reincarnation of Al Gore, whose campaign I covered with an equal amount of cringing a dozen years ago. To see Romney, in his Gap jeans, laughing awkwardly at his own jokes and making patently disingenuous claims, brings back all those bad memories of 2000: “Love Story.” Inventing the Internet. Earth tones. Three-button suits. The alpha male in cowboy boots. The iced-tea defense. The Buddhist temple. The sighing during the debate. It’s familiar, as well, to Michael Feldman, a longtime Gore aide who watched his boss get undone by the inauthentic label. “When an impression like that hardens, you’re communicating into a stiff wind,” he told me. “These caricatures can form impressions that are really hard to turn around.” If anything, Romney’s problem is greater than Gore’s because it is rooted in his frequent repositioning on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and health care. In substance, Romney’s troubles may turn out to be closer to John Kerry’s: As my colleague Greg Sargent has written, the undermining of Romney’s business acumen by the attacks on his work at Bain Capital is similar to the undoing of Kerry’s record as a Vietnam War hero by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Romney, with his many homes, also shares certain rich-guy vulnerabilities with Kerry. Newt Gingrich used an image of Kerry windsurfing in an ad attacking Romney this week, closing with a supposed insult: “Just like John Kerry, he speaks French, too.” But in temperament and style, Romney is closest to Gore, another politician’s son from Harvard with pedantic tendencies who, in public, never quite seems comfortable. The media tend to assign each candidate a character flaw as a form of shorthand (John McCain was volatile, George W. Bush was dopey, Obama is all talk). Ominously, Romney’s descriptions are the same applied to Gore 12 years ago: assuming “personas,” going through “makeovers,” attempting “regular-guy” traits, exhibiting “robotic” behavior and issuing new versions, such as “Romney 3.0.” For Romney, the problem now becomes that reporters, and opponents, are perpetually on the lookout for new examples to add to his dossier of awkwardness. “It’s a self-perpetuating cycle,” explained Chris Lehane, who sought, with limited success, to help Gore defy his “wooden” image. “You’re trying so hard to think through what you’re going to say that you get mental handcuffs every time you speak. You’re so nervous about the archetype that you fall into the archetype.” In Romney’s case, there is already abundant support for the archetype: his belief that “corporations are people,” his talk about hunting “small varmints,” the story about driving with the family dog in a kennel strapped atop the Romneys’ car, his attempted $10,000 bet with Rick Perry, his singing “Who let the dogs out?,” his pretending to be pinched on the behind by a waitress, his bizarre jokes about Hooters and hollandaise sauce, and his tendency to ask debate moderators for protection from his opponents. None of those is, by itself, disqualifying — and, as in Gore’s case, not all the examples are fair. But, combined with Romney’s frequent fluctuations on the issues, his awkwardness has left an impression that he is a phony and not to be trusted. Romney isn’t necessarily doomed — Gore, after all, received more votes than the other guy — but this much seems clear: Over the next 10 months, Romney will be getting the Gore treatment. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment on Dana Milbank's column by clicking here. Previously: • 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina • 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed • 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem • 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism • 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control • 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP • 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument • 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball • 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball • 12/20/11 Strange brews and views? • 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction • 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet • 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012 • 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him • 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement? • 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington • 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy • 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission • 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington • 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee? • 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last • 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier • 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama • 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up • 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive • 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee • 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines • 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade • 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own • 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man • 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress • 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on • 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street? • 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease • 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe • 09/28/11 Cain could deliver • 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys? • 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary • 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs • 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution • 09/19/11 Dems for Romney? • 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee • 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice • 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney • 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate • 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler • 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots • 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth? • 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington • 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party • 08/03/11 Government on autopilot • 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death • 07/27/11 Life imitates sport • 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington • 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress • 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan • 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate • 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind • 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance • 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To • 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up • 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama • 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style • 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion • 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs • 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney • 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour • 06/02/11 The Weiner roast • 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out • 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly • 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu • 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling • 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax • 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation • 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors • 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney • 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up • 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans • 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups • 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary • 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap • 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control • 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room? • 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought • 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right • 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012 • 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama. • 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift • 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world • 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy • 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency • 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics • 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget • 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant! • 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service • 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate • 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government • 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis • 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya • 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners • 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling • 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren? • 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning • 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap • 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do • 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV • 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House • 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC • 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation © 2011, Washington Post Writers Group