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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
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Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Oct. 4, 2006
/ 12 Tishrei 5767
Oprah, Obama and the leadership gap
By
Clarence Page
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's official: Oprah Winfrey refuses to throw her own bonnet into the ring as a presidential candidate, but she's more than happy to push her senator, Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, for the job.
That's what she told Larry King on his CNN program last Monday. But, if Winfrey thinks she can defuse the draft-Oprah movement, such as it is, she's probably mistaken. There are forces larger than even Ms. O's charismatic popularity at work here.
By week's end, for example, Internet sites were offering "Oprah Obama '08" trucker hats, tote bags and other paraphernalia. If nothing else, the T-shirt and bumper sticker industries will keep hope for the two big O's alive.
So, alas, will the insatiable 24-hour appetites of cable TV, talk radio and other media. "The media only care about Obama because he's black," say a few one-liner e-mails that I have received from unimpressed readers. Well, as the young folks say, duh-uh!
Or, as older folks say, you have a keen grasp of the obvious.
Yes, friends and neighbors, Obama is black or, more precisely, the famously half-black son of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mom. But our curiosity should only begin with the realities of race, not end there.
The truly intriguing question is, why do so many Americans get all warm and excited over the prospect of a viable black presidential candidate?
We've seen serious draft movements rise up in both parties and among moderates over the past decade for Obama, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. We saw the neo-liberal Washington Monthly catch the temperature of the times by urging Democrats in early 2005 to consider Bill Cosby: "A successful, much-loved black man touting education and family-valuesWhat's not to love?"
Now Oprah? Patrick Crowe, a retired Kansas City math teacher and former car wash owner, has been promoting a draft-Oprah movement for years. Hardly anyone noticed until Winfrey's lawyers did him the favor of threatening to sue him if he didn't stop using their client's name on his Web site. Up stepped Lady O, who admonished her lawyers to leave that dear man alone. She was flattered by Crowe's attention, she said, as if no one had been paying attention to her before.
But why the frenzy to draft Oprah and the rest?
Celebrity star power matters. Just ask California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But with all of the political celebs who want to run for office, why all the fascination with the above-listed stars who don't?
Another reason: Symbols matter. I was surprised by several angry e-mails after I referred to Powell and Rice as important "symbols" of America's racial progress. "They're not 'symbols,'" my readers said defensively, as if I had said "tokens," which would mean they were not qualified for their jobs. Quite the contrary, it is their impressive qualifications for their jobs that makes them important symbols of progress, regardless of how you feel about their politics.
Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech lit a fire under Democrats by giving them their own Colin Powell, a new face who offered a refreshing mix not only of races and cultures, but also of liberal ideas with traditional values.
Of course, the irony is that the quest to elect a symbol of how America has moved beyond race means that Obama, Rice, Winfrey, Cosby, etc., must be judged at least in part on the color of their skin, not the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed. This effectively reduces them into something less than the individuals they strive to be. Such are the ways of modern politics, which pit one media-created image against another. But they also help explain why Obama, among others, has good reason to avoid jumping into the presidential ring too soon, if at all.
Which leads to my third explanation for the excitement surrounding Obama, Powell, Winfrey, etc.: Widespread disappointment with the current lineup of likely 2008 presidential candidates.
Democrats fear their current frontrunner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, won't cross over well to crucial moderates. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican frontrunner, faces his biggest hurdle with conservatives in his own party's base.
Behind this disappointment I detect a national yearning for a truly transformational leader, the sort of leader who not only manages daily problem-solving but actually transforms the times in which we live, as Ronald Reagan did from the right or John F. Kennedy from the left. Instead, we see a lineup of "transactional leaders," fixated on short-term remedies and surrounded by spin doctors to prevent them from digging deeper holes for themselves.
The speech that launched Obama to stardom contained an important element of transformational leadership. The first President Bush called it "the vision thing." It matters a lot more than skin color.
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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