Home
In this issue
Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review Oct. 25, 2012/ 9 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773

A Trumped-up bomb

By Dana Milbank


Printer Friendly Version



http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | October Surprises just aren’t what they used to be.

Carnival barker and Mitt Romney surrogate Donald Trump (R-Absurdity) set the gossip mill churning this week when he declared he would make a “major announcement” about President Obama. “It’s very big — bigger than anybody would know,” he told Fox News Channel.

Would it be the bombshell revelation that Obama sold cocaine in college? The discovery of divorce papers for the president and the first lady?

A betting house set 250/1 odds that Trump would prove that Obama is from another planet, and 500/1 odds that he would announce that he is Obama’s father. The disclosure that Obama is not American was a relatively safe bet, at 2/5 odds.

But Trump surprised them all by announcing . . . absolutely nothing. Instead, he released at high noon on Wednesday what had the look of a ransom video, in which the Donald himself, appearing puffy and unwell, played a character that was part Dr. Evil, part Crazy Eddie.

“I have a deal for the president, a deal that I don’t believe he can refuse,” Trump announced, leaning forward and chopping the air with his hands. “If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give to a charity of his choice . . . a check, immediately, for $5 million! The check will be given within one hour after he releases all of the records so stated.”

And if you act now, Mr. President, Trump will include an extra added free complimentary bonus gift at no cost to you!

In a singsong voice, Trump teased the president with possible charities that might interest him — “inner-city children in Chicago, American Cancer Society” — and repeated his terms: “All he has to do to get five million dollars . . . ”

This was trumped up even by the Donald’s self-aggrandizing standards. Denunciations and derision rang out from the political left, right and center. The bookmaker that took bets on Trump’s bombshell refunded the wagers. The real estate mogul had managed to make his real announcement resemble the Onion’s spoof article: “Donald Trump announced that he is a very sad man who has nothing to live for other than drawing attention to himself.”

One beneficiary of Trump’s bust was the publicity-seeking lawyer Gloria Allred, if only because it made her own October Surprise seem somewhat more newsworthy by comparison. She went to court Wednesday with the ex-wife of one of Romney’s former business associates as part of an effort to unseal testimony Romney gave in a 20-year-old divorce case.

Allred’s client is alleging, according to the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ, that Romney lied when he testified during her divorce from Staples founder Tom Stemberg. Romney, whose Bain Capital backed Staples, allegedly testified that the office supply chain was worth little, so the ex-wife lost out. (A Massachusetts judge is expected to hold another hearing on the matter Thursday.)

Even if true, the Allred surprise seems little more likely to shake up the presidential race than Trump’s histrionics.

The only true October Surprises this year have been executed by candidates themselves — and they aren’t what you’d call happy surprises. The latest belongs to Richard Mourdock, a Republican candidate for Senate in Indiana, who on Tuesday said abortion should be forbidden in all cases because “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Romney’s campaign distanced itself from Mourdock’s sentiment, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) canceled an appearance with him. Mourdock, a tea party candidate who already was in jeopardy of losing what had been a safely Republican seat, attempted to clarify his views Wednesday, saying he opposes “any kind of sexual violence.”

Mourdock’s remarks put him in the undesirable category of Todd Akin, the Republican Senate nominee in Missouri who squandered an easy win in August when he asserted that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. But Akin had already unveiled an October Surprise of his own: comparing his opponent, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, to a canine.

“It’s a little bit like one of those dogs, you know ‘fetch,’ and she goes to Washington, D.C., and gets all of these taxes and red tape and bureaucracy,” Akin said on Saturday.

Akin’s campaign spokesman, Rick Tyler, later tweeted that McCaskill’s breed would be a bull Shih Tzu — but he spelled it differently.

Surprising, but wrong. We already have had a dog of that variety this campaign season, and his name is Donald Trump.


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:



10/24/12 Groupthink Live: How conventional wisdom congeals in 2012
10/23/12 The sound of worldviews not colliding
10/22/12 The tea party is helping Dems
10/18/12 Moderate Mitt wins conservatives' blessings
10/16/12 Reid's latest salvos are beneath the dignity of his office
10/08/12 Obama pays price for ducking the questions
10/05/12 Mitt Romney holds his own -- and then some -- in first debate
10/03//12 The Zinger candidacy --- all sugary platitudes, no protein
09/25/12 Obama makes room for 'The View'
08/17/12 Hateful speech on 'hate' groups: The Family Research Council is no KKK
08/16/12 Now Dems are employing harsh tactics
08/14/12 Paul Ryan on soapbox at Iowa State Fair
08/13/12 Romney's welfare gambit
08/07/12 Harry Reid's latest broadside
07/26/12 Romney can't have it both ways on defense spending, tax cuts
07/19/12 Ron Paul, fed up
07/17/12 The rotten results of one-party rule
07/11/12 The missing giants of the Senate
07/09/12 Representative Gaffe
07/02/12 The umpire strikes back
06/25/12 Norquist delivers the GOP's marching orders
06/19/12 The left, feeling left out
06/18/12 Skip the falsehoods, Mr. President, and give us a plan
06/15/12 The Wall Street Senate
06/13/12 Jeb Bush's heresy
06/12/12 Pileup at the White House
06/11/12 Obama's fate could be in Europe's hands
06/04/12 Welcome to Camp Competitive
05/31/12 Digging a racial grave
05/30/12 A new conspiracy theory: Is Romney a unicorn?
05/29/12 Do Republicans really want to clone one for the Gipper?
05/24/12 Obama's protectors are under the microscope
05/22/12 Obama's Old World mess: Allies are coming up short at a key moment
05/16/12 Where have all the candidates gone?
05/15/12 Barack Obama, the first female president
05/14/12 Irrationality wins: Voter cure for Congress's failures will likely backfire
05/08/12 Obama's marriage mess: His advisers scramble to clean up his 'evolution'
05/07/12 Taking out Dick Lugar
05/03/12 Gingrich may have ended campaign, but he will remain out of this world
05/02/12 Our do-almost-nothing Congress
05/01/12 President Obama, campaigner in chief
04/25/12 Romney's immigration Etch a Sketch
04/23/12 A congressional deal on immigration? Dream on
04/19/12 Dems battle back against Republican 'war on women'
04/18/12 Debauchery: An American govermental specialty
04/17/12 Silent witness
04/12/12 Rebuffing Obama's gimmicky 'Buffett Rule'
04/11/12 Santorum's Gettysburg surrender
04/09/12 The facts vs. Mitt Romney
04/06/12 Mitt Romney, talking to the press, keeps the press at a distance
04/05/12 From tracking al-Qaeda to tracking the wayward spouse
04/04/12 Budget cuts as back-door deregulation
03/26/12 My pet Mitt
03/22/12 Mitt Romney's latest gaffe may be etched in history
03/20/12 Supreme Court conceives of life after death
03/15/12 Conservative for Obama: The British PM as campaign prop
03/14/12 In Section 60, a silent search for meaning
03/13/12 Super Friends, unite
03/12/12 It's time to believe: Romney's a winner
03/07/12 Settling in to Washington's ways
03/06/12 AIPAC beats the drums of war
03/05/12 Did Republicans forget the women's vote?
02/29/12 Mitt Romney's acceptance speech, in (mostly) his own words
02/28/12 Common ground becomes a great divide
02/27/12 An expert witness for the GOP gender gap
02/21/12 Where Romney shines
02/15/12 A Republican death wish?
02/14/12Obama's budget games
02/13/12 Are GOPers playing right into Obama's hands?
02/08/12 Obama pumps the compressor of Joe Hudy's Extreme Marshmallow Cannon
02/07/12 Abramoff's atonement
02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
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