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February 10, 2012
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David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
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)
February 7, 2012
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Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
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
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
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'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
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
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
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
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
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
Nov. 7, 2008
/ 9 Mar-Cheshvan 5769
You elected a man, not a moral judgment
By
Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
If we really inhabited a "post-racial" world, the news of the week would be that a Democrat has won the White House. But since we don't inhabit such a world, there is much more to the news, even more than that an African-American, far-left Democrat has won the White House.
The New York Times' Thomas Friedman clued us in the morning after, waxing rhapsodic (or something): "And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man — Barack Hussein Obama — won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States. A civil war that, in many ways, began at Bull Run, Va., on July 21, 1861, ended 147 years later via a ballot box in the very same state."
As befitting a Pulitzer-Prize winner, Friedman was only just warming up ("For nothing more symbolically illustrated the final chapter of America's Civil War than the fact that" blah blah...). But there were others taking up a similar battle cry. Madeleine M. Kunin, former governor of Vermont (and, as she also bills herself, eternal "first woman governor" of Vermont) declared at the online Huffington Post that the election of Barack Obama "is, in a sense, the culmination of Lincoln's quest — a more perfect union."
And, well, so it came to pass that in those earliest hours of the new era that Spike Lee went on MSNBC to tell us will heretofore be known as AB (After Barack, natch, with all past millennia relegated to BB, Before Barack), the Civil War ended, and Lincoln's "more perfect union" was achieved. What next — or, perhaps, why bother? That is, who could ask for anything more?
One answer is Menachem Rosensaft, who, elsewhere on Huffpo, pushed the election results into a somewhat different cosmic direction. "On Nov. 4, 2008, at 11 pm," he wrote, "Robert Kennedy finally won."
I rubbed my eyes but Rosensaft continued: "Forty years after his assassination shattered dreams and brought his quest to change America to a sudden, brutal halt, Robert Kennedy reached the goal that had been denied him in life."
Now I was starting to get it. Candidate Obama, whom the media permitted to remain a political cipher behind the flowing messiah robes, is now President-Elect Obama, magic mirror of historical redress.
No doubt this would present where's-the-beef style problems for the average president, but Obama isn't destined to be the average president — or so we have been led to believe. Or, rather, so we have led ourselves to believe.
In a particularly trenchant post-election column, author Shelby Steele explained how it was that a candidate he describes as "quite unremarkable" regarding public policy (an amalgam of "old-fashioned Keynesianism" and "recycled Great Society") was able, first, "to project an idealized vision of post-racial America," and then "have that vision define political decency."
Once these visions were set, Steele writes, "a failure to support Obama politically became a failure of decency."
In this way, the white voters who became Obama's political base were vested in the success of Obama's vision — or, rather, in the vision of Obama's success. Longing to "escape the stigma of racism," as Steele calls it, white voters became "enchanted" with Obama because their support for him provided evidence and certification of their own now self-evident state of "post-racial" enlightenment.
But, as Steele further explains, there's an inherent contradiction to this unusual, if not historically unique, relationship. "When whites — especially today's younger generation — proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society ... seduces whites with a vision of the racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist ... would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally."
Bingo. Here Steel demystifies the great and perplexing divide between those who care supremely about documenting and displaying their own "racial innocence" — and I would put the mainstream media, Obama voters and most politicians including John McCain into that category — and those who don't. These latter "real post-racialists" see Obama as a man, not an icon, as a politician who emerged from a hotbed of anti-American radicalism, not a sacred totem of enlightenment better suited to a glass case at the Smithsonian than the boisterous tussle of the political arena.
For almost two years, Obama has been, in Steele's words, evaluated culturally. This has resulted in reverential media non-coverage and now post-election judgments and metaphors that are already beginning to defy satire. Of course, Barack Obama didn't end the Civil War, isn't the reincarnation of RFK, and benefits from, but didn't bring about, the long-entrenched social changes that facilitated his political rise. As he now heads to the White House, it's crucial that he finally be regarded as a politician, not a messiah, and as a man, not a moral judgment. Otherwise, the cultural juggernaut he seems likely to unleash will be unstoppable.
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