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Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
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 Feb. 20, 2006 / 22 Shevat, 5766

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By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | People want to know what it is like to be a conservative columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Suffice it to say, there are days — as in the Monday after Vice President Dick Cheney shot a buddy in a quail-hunting accident — when I'd rather be working for a conservative rag, like The Weekly Standard.


If I close my eyes, I can imagine the scene. I'm not at The Chronicle, I'm breakfasting with other journalists — and because they're conservative, too, they don't think I'm a total freak. We all agree, speaking passionately about hunting protocol, that it was wrong for Harry Whittington to take it lightly. We shake our heads, gravely disappointed that Whittington forsook an individual's profound responsibility — that is taken too lightly by the liberal media — to warn others when he is standing where they are shooting.


At The Chronicle, I'm like the nerd with a bull's-eye taped on his back. Nothing can stop the barrage. I try to be pre-emptive. As I pick up political reporter Carla Marinucci for the drive into work Monday, I speak first: "No Cheney jokes."


She tells five — before we reach the freeway ramp. And at work all day, certain individuals (who don't know who they are) lie in wait — anxious for the moment they can buttonhole me and launch their little salvos.


Insert your own orange vest/yellowcake uranium joke here. Inquiring minds want to know: Aren't I going to write about Cheney? What am I supposed to say? Accidents are bad? OK. Accidents are bad. For the record, here it is: Dick Cheney should not have shot Harry Whittington. Not that most reporters will leave the brouhaha there. There is the familiar refrain, which is always the follow-up when you don't bash the Bushies enough: What about the White House's handling of the incident?


Like there's a good way to announce that the vice president shot someone by mistake. There's this cheesy way that pundits troll for an angle — they try to frame a story on something ennobling, so it won't look like they're taking potshots (pun intended) at the veep while he's down. It's lowbrow fascination masquerading as high-minded principle, equivalent to news stations running an item about Pamela Anderson's boycott of the Kentucky Derby because of her animal-rights activism, when the real goal is to show B-roll of Anderson half-naked and undulating.


So there's the Corpus Christi Caller-Times versus The New York Times angle, the full day without disclosure angle, even the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame angle. Please. These are all self-important ways of not saying what many journalists simply want to holler from the rooftops: Dick Cheney is Elmer Fudd.

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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