
 |
|
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
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
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
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
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
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 16, 2009
/ 27 Elul 5769
Like a Knife Through Water
By
Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
What a fine speaker our president is. That's the overriding impression he left once he managed to get through the endless applause and handshakes and Roman ovations -- late Roman -- that have become a feature of presidential addresses to Congress and was finally allowed to begin his speech about health care.
It's not the content of the speech that evokes wonder and admiration but the speaker himself. Content scarcely matters with this president. What counts is how he delivers it. It's as if he were lecturing a law school class, and the students are just bowled over--not with the case he's presenting but the presentation. If the case is a muddle, and will raise more questions than it answers once the haze of admiration has cleared, never mind. For he's a master of what the Italians call una bella figura. He cuts a fine figure.
But for all his craft, the star of the evening seemed curiously removed from his thesis, if he has one. If you can find it and agree with it, fine. If not, he assures you, he's willing to compromise. What's not to like? Or to like, for that matter. Form, not content, is what matters. Design, not engineering. As in an Italian sports car on the showroom floor. Never been driven. Maybe not meant to be driven. Everything shimmers, everything is negotiable. And the salesman's style is Armani impeccable. Substance? It can come later, if at all.
A thin but impermeable film seems to separate this president from any of the hard decisions. That'll be up to Congress. It will lift anchor, wait for a wind, provide the ballast, do the heavy lifting, choose the course minute by minute and day after day, confer endlessly, and generally see the vessel, however battered by then, through the storms of debate. The president is just there to provide the sail.
But what smooth sailing it is, at least for an hour. Give our president a teleprompter and away he goes, like a knife through water. Resistance parts before him. Doubts melt away. Disbelief is suspended. And yet, as with a knife through water, everything just closes behind it, and remains as before: fluid. Far below the surface, the hard questions remain, rocky, obdurate, as untouched as the speaker himself.
By the end of the evening, our president has spoken so smoothly that it's not clear just what he's said, if anything, or what difference it makes. Maybe he's not there to make a difference, just to speak. Did I mention that he's very good at it? That much all can agree upon. As for the subject of his address, health care, it can wait.
The morning after, what has changed? The problems with the nation's health-care system, which isn't much of a system, are still there. So are the aspects of the system that work fine for so many of us, though the speaker scarcely touches upon them. It's as if he were a man in a bubble, protected by his sheen, yet unable to penetrate it. He seems immune to contact with abrasive reality, and wrestling with it may be the one indispensable requirement for legislative success.
You'd think that Barack Obama, being a Chicago politician, would know that politics ain't beanbag. Wasn't it Mister Dooley who first made that observation a century ago? And didn't that fictive Irish barkeep and incisive political commentator practice his comforting trade in the Windy City? Well, politics ain't rhetoric, either, as good as this president is at it.
But never mind all that. Just relax and listen to the comforting voice, as you would in a hypnotist's chair, and Obamacare sounds like the best of all worlds. Everyone will be insured and no one's taxes will be raised. Not really. Well, maybe the other fellow's. Better, quicker, safer health care will be delivered but it will cost less. (Mandrake the Magician had nothing on this president.) To save money, we'll just spend more. This administration is very good at that.
We will "build on what works," but fashion new systems that have never worked before, mainly because they've never been tried before. At least not in this country. Time is of the essence but, never fear, much of the president's plan won't go into effect for years. The opposition is resorting to scare tactics but, if his plan isn't adopted now, "more will die as a result." He's against partisanship except when he can't resist a dig or two at Republicans. But don't you worry your pretty little head about such details. Just leave them to Reid, Pelosi and Partisan Co. to iron out. All the pieces will fall into place. Or maybe just fall.
Why ask so many questions anyway? Be assured that the president's program will usher in the best of all worlds. Just maybe not the best of all possible worlds. That's the catch. But while the country is under his spell for an hour, why spoil the moment by thinking? He proceeds so surely, at a smooth clip of about a gap a minute. But that's OK, because he plans to come back and fill in each and every one. If only with a contradiction.
On reading the text of the president's speech in cold type the next morning, the gaps and contradictions leap off the page. And a hangover, like the kind that follows any binge, even a rhetorical one, begins. Questions buzz in the mind: Those of us with insurance through our company plans needn't change a thing, but if the president gets his Public Option, what's to prevent a cost-conscious company from shifting us onto it? Paying a fine to do so might be a bargain for the boss. There'll be tax credits galore but nothing in the president's plan will add to the federal deficit. There'll be co-ops and exchanges and subsidies, but just how they'll work, or if they'll work, and how much they'll cost in still higher taxes. ... All those little matters are far below a president's pay grade.
But the buzzing persists: Won't public health insurance drive private insurers out of competition, the way the Obama administration wants to cut the banks out of the business of providing government-guaranteed student loans? Nonsense, says the president. The public option would cover maybe only 5 percent of the population. The camel only wants to get his nose under the tent. Why is that not assuring?
Mr. Obama says he's not the first president to address health care, but he's determined to be the last. Can he be serious? As long as there is health care, politicians will be addressing it.
There are a lot of things both Republicans and Democrats -- and both kinds of those, yellow and blue dog -- can agree on. Like making health insurance portable. Like creating a more efficient, national market for health insurance -- one crosses state lines. Like reforming the law so doctors don't have to practice defensive medicine to guard against being sued for no good reason -- not just giving that goal a lick and promise and maybe a demonstration project.
Why not concentrate on common ground, fix what can be fixed, and don't mess with what ain't broken? Or would that be unspeakably sensible for a president who floats high above such mundane matters?
Still, there is a sliver of comfort in all the news coverage. On reading the reactions to the president's plan, the charge that the press sensationalizes everything it covers evaporates. For there in the good ol', knowledgeable ol' Washington Post is the most understated headline yet in this whole brouhaha over health care: "Details Still Lacking On Obama Proposal/ White House Unclear on How Some Far-Reaching Goals Would Be Met."
The president is no slouch at understatement himself. Almost in passing during his speech Wednesday night, he notes, "there remain some significant details to be ironed out." Like just about all of them.
Paul Greenberg Archives
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many 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.
include "/usr/web/jewishworldreview.com/t-ssi/jwr_squaread_300x250.php";
if (strpos(, "printer_friendly") === 0)
{}
else {
=<<
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Tony Blankley
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Alan Douglas
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
Marybeth Hicks
David Horowitz
Jeff Jacoby
Renee James
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Ben Wattenberg
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

Mr. Know-It-All
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
Tech Maven
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|