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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 May 8, 2009 / 14 Iyar 5769

Will Obama apologize?

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | President Obama's admirers (for a handy list simply consult the White House Correspondents Association website) go into raptures about his measured, intelligent, even balanced approach to issues. Granted, he is intelligent. But measured and balanced? Hardly.


Consider his first official act. Oozing moral superiority, President Obama signed an executive order on his second day in office requiring that Guantanamo be closed within 12 months. The United States need not, he intoned, "continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals." The president, who had declared the Bush-era military commissions to be "an enormous failure," also suspended those tribunals for four months pending a review.


This is a by now familiar Obama trope. Instead of a complicated world presenting difficult, sometimes even wrenching choices, the world is actually simple for those with the wisdom and virtue to see it Obama's way. There is no difficult choice between using tough methods to extract information from hardened terrorists or not doing so and risking terrible death to thousands. No, in Obamaland all is facile. We will be better people by foreswearing waterboarding and other ugly interrogation techniques and we will be safer as well! We'll be safer because the world, including al-Qaida, which supposedly used Guantanamo as a "recruiting tool," will like us more and be less likely to attack us. In Obamaland we need not give our domestic opponents the benefit of the doubt that they were patriotically motivated non-sadists who truly believed — after repeatedly trying softer methods — that mild torture was necessary in a handful of cases.


Of course, the "recruiting tool" argument was unconvincing. Al-Qaida seemed to do most of its recruiting and most of its attacking during the 1990s, before Guantanamo existed as a detention facility. Moreover, people who take pleasure in beheading their captives because they are infidels (as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed personally boasted of doing to gentle Daniel Pearl) are not likely to be motivated primarily by outraged human rights sensibilities. But never mind. The moral high was apparently irresistible and very few in the press were of a mind to question it.


Now for the fine print. You won't find it on the front pages but the Obama administration has been walking back its position on many national security questions. Attorney General Eric Holder has asserted that the U.S. has the right to hold suspected terrorists without charges. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has reiterated that position. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress that military commissions were " very much still on the table," and rumor has it that the Obama administration will soon formally reverse itself on Guantanamo. The New York Times reported that "Officials who work on the Guantanamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies." No kidding? Not only that, but not a single detainee was read his Miranda rights when he was taken into custody. Additionally, Congress is balking on letting Guantanamo's inmates anywhere near their hometowns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein even put Alcatraz off limits. "It's a national park and tourist attraction," she explained.


Former Sen. Rick Santorum, now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has been keeping an eye on other national security flips by the new president. Remember how Obama had lambasted the Bush administration for relying on the "state secrets" privilege? The Obama Justice Department has already invoked the doctrine twice — most recently to defend the National Security Agency's surveillance of communications. The Justice Department explained that "attempting to address the allegations in this case could require the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods that are used in a lawful manner to protect national security. The administration cannot risk the disclosure of information that could cause such exceptional harm ..." Query to the ACLU: Does that mean the Obama administration is "shredding the Constitution?"


Similarly, a Pentagon official told Britain's Daily Telegraph that shutting down the military commissions in favor of federal trials looked easy on Jan. 20 "but having reviewed the files, it makes sense to keep some cases in the military commissions."


Is there some satisfaction in finding that the Obama administration is not utterly unmoved by national security concerns? Some. But this president has preened himself so much on his moral superiority. The words humility and Obama have probably never been found in the same sentence. But that is the very least he should demonstrate now.

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