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In this issue

Dec. 4, 2008

Michael Freund: France vs. the Jewish right to reproduce

Frida Ghitis: Heed the security lessons of deadly siege

Dec. 3, 2008

Steven Emerson: Yes, the terrorists are winning

Don Terry: Lifetime, no see

Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 31, 2008 / 28 Tamuz 5768

Road show

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | With apologies to Walter Winchell:


Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America — from border to border and coast to coast, and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press. ... Barack Obama is back from his BOFFO European tour, having wowed 'em in Berlin and Paris and points east, notably Kabul and Baghdad-on-the-Tigris. ... Comparisons with John F. Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan were flying even before this Obamathon began.


Those of us on the dextral side of American politics can only envy our honorable opponents of sinistral bent for the grace and elegance with which the newest star of American politics conducted himself during his road tour. ... Bon Jovi should get such reviews. ... He came, he saw, he wowed. ... If only the Germans and French elected the next American president, Barack Obama could start planning his inauguration/coronation now.


And he offered not just style but propriety, even tradition. Asked by a French reporter to review the failures of the Bush administration, which he's been doing ever since the start of his presidential campaign, the young senator respectfully declined, explaining that we in America have a tradition of not criticizing a sitting president when abroad. ... What's more, he approved of the practice and was going to follow it. It was the kind of comment that made you want to stand up, wave the flag and say: Well done. Who says Barack Obama is no traditionalist?


If the Obama Tour was a triumph, the troubling thought occurs that, like his campaign, it was a triumph of style over substance. ... Talk of his Kennedyesque grace may be all too accurate, for JFK was scarcely inaugurated before he invited his administration's and maybe the 20th century's greatest crisis by appearing weak and uncertain: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. ... There's no telling where a President Obama's first crisis would emanate from, but Teheran is a good guess. The world is just full of terrible surprises waiting to happen. ... Will Iran's president and demagogue-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, see this junior senator's eagerness to negotiate without preconditions as a weakness to be exploited, the way Hitler sensed Chamberlain's?


Neville Chamberlain, too, was eager for direct negotiations, and drew huge crowds at home and abroad roaring their approval of his devotion to peace in his time, aka appeasement. ... In September of 1938, Britain's Queen Mary wept with relief when the prime minister told Commons that he would be going to Germany for a third time to conciliate Herr Hitler, this time to Munich for an international conference that would resolve the crisis. Czechoslovakia's Jan Masaryk, who understood what the announcement meant for his little country, just wept. ... Come to think, only the Israelis were less than wildly enthusiastic when the Obamaplane touched down in the Holy Land on its royal progress.


But there's no denying Barack Obama's shining appeal, his way with words, and how good he looks tieless in a white, unbuttoned shirt fielding questions with a cat-like grace. ... He can shift positions so completely yet smoothly you scarcely notice. ... Even more impressive, he makes anyone who points it out sound petty.


If only the right side of the American political spectrum had a comparable presidential nominee and slender young matinee idol to make its views irresistible. ... But there's hope: If Senator Obama will just continue his political evolution now that his party's primaries are over and he's back in the real world, he may yet prove the conservative candidate in this race. ... He's already pivoted on Iraq, campaign financing, gun control, FISA, and who knows what's next. More to come, no doubt.


Every time you look around, the Democratic candidate is ooching over to starboard. Soon he'll be passing John McCain on the right ... though he did switch the other way on school vouchers, which he's now against, at least when he talks to a teachers' union. ... Barack Obama is the candidate of Change, all right — at least when it comes to his own stands. ... He makes poor, literally old John McCain look like the fuddy-duddy he is for sticking to his same old positions on victory in Iraq, the Second Amendment, education reform, public financing for presidential campaigns. ... He's so unhip he's still against punishing the phone companies for cooperating with the government right after 9/11. ... But who remembers 9/11 any more? Another date that was going to live in infamy hasn't.


The chief effect of a renewed sense of security at home and the sight of victory abroad has been to encourage not gratitude on the part of the American electorate but amnesia. ... Result: George W. Bush is set to leave the White House as the most unpopular president since HST. ... It's the hallmark of American democracy, ingratitude, and has been at least since John Adams, that dull old puritan, got into his carriage and hustled out of Washington without even attending the inauguration of his glamorous successor, T. Jefferson, who represented La Nouvelle Vague in 1800 the way B. Obama does in 2008. ... The American desire for change never changes.


Tune in again tomorrow. Till then, this is your devoted correspondent signing off for Jergen's with lotions of love....

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.

JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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