March 19, 2010 Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel March 18, 2010 Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America? JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes) Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum March 17, 2010 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth? March 16, 2010 Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes) Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel March 15, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes) Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT March 12, 2010 Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades March 11, 2010 Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing March 10, 2010 Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE) Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S. March 9, 2010 Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES) David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral March 8, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss? JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES) Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion March 5, 2010 Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause March 4, 2010 Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses? JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES) Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative March 3, 2010 Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: NEVER!!! JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES) The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub March 2, 2010 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo? March 1, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Lender responsibility JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES) Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute Feb. 26, 2010 Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost Feb. 25, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES) Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives Feb. 24, 2010 Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’ Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack Feb. 23, 2010 Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No! JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES) Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes Feb. 22, 2010 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically? JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES) Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk Feb. 19, 2010 Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us? JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State Feb. 18, 2010 Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain? JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES) Everything's Relative By Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel : The altruist in hell Feb. 17, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Entitlement Vs. Charity JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES) Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah Feb. 16, 2010 Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES) Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief Feb. 15, 2010 Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES) Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review June 24, 2008 / 21 Sivan 5768 Why do we expect presidential candidates to be kind? By Anne Applebaum http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in the past few days I feel I've been overwhelmed by a tsunami of commentary, all of which purports to prove the fundamental nastiness of Barack Obama or, alternatively, the deep unlikability of John McCain. You thought our presidential candidates were nice guys, regular guys, guys who you'd like to sit down and have a beer with? Guess what, lots of people are now telling me: They aren't! Thus David Brooks of the New York Times has contrasted the warm-and-fuzzy Obama on our television screens with "Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes." The Daily Mail of London has called McCain a "self-centered womaniser who effectively abandoned his [first] crippled wife." In recent months I've also read, or been told, that John McCain snubbed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life and is rude to his (second) wife in public; that Obama abandoned his beloved church to save his political skin and for similar reasons had some nasty friends in Chicago; that both candidates "flip-flop" on the issues nearest and dearest to them, merely in order to win votes. From whatever political quarter it comes, and regardless of whatever merit it may have, all of this commentary starts with the same assumption: The reader is meant to be shocked, shocked, that these two men—men who have submitted themselves to months of brutal campaigning, men who have thrown their wives and families to the wolves, men who know they might at any second need to abandon their closest friends—these two men are not, in fact, very nice people at all! ________________________________________ ________________________________________ But why on earth should anyone expect them to be? In its wisdom, America has devised a presidential election system that actively selects for egotistical megalomaniacs: You simply cannot enter the White House if you aren't one. You might start out as an idealist, of course, and I would even give both Obama and McCain the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure both are patriots, both care about America, both want to make the world a better place. But in order to become the candidate, both also had to make a series of utterly ruthless decisions, decisions that most nice guys would find unpalatable. I don't care what a helpful father Michelle says he is, there is absolutely no sense in which Obama's presidential campaign—or, should it come to it, Obama's presidency—is good for Obama's children. Neither is there a scenario under which Cindy McCain, who always looks profoundly uncomfortable in the limelight, is ever going to relax and enjoy her husband's golden retirement years. Anyone who was ever closely associated with either candidate is now at risk of unpleasant media exposure. No one who works for them right now has job security, and no one who knows them can expect any favors. Think hard, as well, about what a presidential campaign truly demands of a candidate. To become president, you must love talking about yourself: Talk, talk, brag and talk, every day, every evening, on national television, in the company of newspaper reporters, in every spare moment, and not just for a few days or weeks but for years and years on end. If you don't crave attention; if you don't long for adulation; if you don't, at some level, feel you are G-d's gift to the American people, then you don't run for president at all. And yet despite the existence of this extraordinarily harsh, ruthless presidential selection system, Americans, possibly uniquely among democratic nations, do at some level expect their leaders to be nice. I'm convinced George W. Bush became president in part because he seemed nice—refreshingly inarticulate, just like the rest of us—even though his former associates often admit that he isn't nice at all. It was once said of Ronald Reagan that his career proved the limitations of charm: If you turn it on for the public, you don't have much left over in private. Still, the desire to be represented by a nice person penetrates quite deep into the American psyche. We "like Ike," and we like Jimmy and Bill, and we want our country to be run by the sort of person we can call by a nickname. Neither of our current presidential candidates seems much inclined to nicknames, which is just as well, really. Perhaps a touch of formality will help us remember that, whatever their many good qualities, both are self-centered, driven, ambitious, calculating, manipulative politicians—because they have to be. That's what it takes to be president of the United States, and we might as well get used to it now. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. APPLEBAUM'S LATEST Gulag: A History   Nearly 30 million prisoners passed through the Soviet Union's labor camps in their more than 60 years of operation. This remarkable volume, the first fully documented history of the gulag, describes how, largely under Stalin's watch, a regulated, centralized system of prison labor-unprecedented in scope-gradually arose out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Fueled by waves of capricious arrests, this prison labor came to underpin the Soviet economy. JWR's Applebaum, a former Warsaw correspondent for the Economist and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, draws on newly accessible Soviet archives as well as scores of camp memoirs and interviews with survivors to trace the gulag's origins and expansion Sales help fund JWR. Comment on JWR contributor Anne Applebaum's column by clicking here. Previously: 06/17/08: Pity the Poor Eurocrats 06/12/08: Is the World Ready for a Black American President? 05/28/08: The Busiest Generation: America seems to value its children's status and achievements over their happiness 05/20/08: Leave Hitler Out of It: The craze for injecting the Nazis into political debate must end 05/13/08: A Drastic Remedy: The case for intervention in Burma 05/07/08: A Warning Shot From Moscow? 04/23/08: Radio to stay tuned to 04/17/08: China learns the price of a few weeks of global attention 04/01/08: Head scarves are potent political symbols 03/26/08: The Olympics are the perfect place for a protest 03/19/08: Could Tibet bring down modern China? 03/12/08: Have political autobiographies made us more susceptible to fake memoirs? 03/05/08: Why does Russia bother to hold elections? 02/20/08: Kosovo is a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences 02/06/08: A Craven Canterbury Tale 02/06/08: French prez' whirlwind romance reminds voters of his political recklessness © 2008, Anne Applebaum

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Froma Harrop  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works