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May 25, 2012
Mark Clayton: Is Hillary's State Dept. hacking Al Qaeda? Not quite
Erika Bolstad: Temple cancels Wasserman Schultz speech
The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman: The former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with contemporary Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Sweet Noodle Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread
May 24, 2012
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The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
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Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
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Jewish World Review
Dec. 13, 2011
/ 17 Kislev, 5772
Return of the Newt
By
Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's not his character flaws that make it hard to take Newt Gingrich seriously as a presidential candidate. The American electorate is notoriously, perhaps even admirably, forgiving of personal failings in a politician. The ability to forgive, even forget, is as mysterious as it is virtuous. I wish I were blessed with more of it. That's something else I'll need to work on.
Some cultures are blessed/cursed with a great national memory. The best thing Newt Gingrich has going for him in this presidential campaign is our great national forgettery. Who remembers now that at one point (the Clinton Years) he supported making every American buy health insurance?
Yes, that's the same individual mandate he now opposes (vociferously, as always). Whatever the merits of the idea, and it's got some, he's been both fir and agin it. That's Newt. He's consistently inconsistent.
He was once all for Nancy Pelosi's cap-and-trade-ism, too, though now he has no idea why. But there's a simple explanation for it: He loves to grandstand, to do the unexpected, to surprise us. He's a performer, and the show must go on.
Newt the Great loves the razzle-dazzle, the punch line, the showmanship of politics. Mitt Romney might be doing better by now if he did. Instead, he's Mr. Cautious, approaching every utterance as if it were a tightrope and he dares not put a foot wrong. And he seldom does. But he doesn't pirouette and somersault and mesmerize, either. Not his style. Which is no style.
Newt Gingrich isn't exactly a man for all seasons; he's a man for any season. He's the deciduous candidate, regularly shedding old positions for new but always with the same fervor. Call him an equal-opportunity enthusiast. He tends to debate rather than reason -- as if thinking things through would be unmanly. His changeability indicates a man given to impulse, just as his marital record does. Do we really want a president that impulsive, always flitting from idea to idea, policy to policy, mood to mood?

No wonder the Newt is attracted to sci-fi themes. He's got more imagination and less gravity than any American political figure this side of Dennis Kucinich, the congressman from Cleveland who believes UFOs are aliens spaceships -- and can sound as if he just stepped off one.
Ron Paul may be a little strange, too, but his is a familiar, predictable strangeness in the American gallery of eccentrics -- money crank, isolationist, conspiratorialist. He's all of a piece. It would not surprise if he believed Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare, either. It all fits together in a familiar pattern. He's a type.
Newt Gingrich just wanders. There's no telling what nostrum will attract him next. Whatever it is, he'll be very forceful about it.
It's not that he lacks thoughts; he's got a surplus of them, usually wild. He throws them out there in all directions, Which may be a fine way to entertain or even instruct college freshmen -- he used to teach history -- but it's no way to lead the country. As both historian and politician, he's a great popularizer, not so great a thinker.

When it comes to ideas, Newt the Magnificent has got a million of 'em. Abolish the Congressional Budget Office! Defund the National Labor Relations Board! Hire child janitors in the schools so the poor will learn how to work! He loves to provoke. Rather than lead. Nobody takes him seriously when he throws out such proposals, knowing they'll never get beyond the rhetorical stage. It's all in good fun.
He's also a heck of a name-caller. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is "corrupt" (as if one can't be wrong without being crooked), and Paul Ryan's proposal to reform Medicare, his party's one serious attempt to save it, is nothing but "right-wing social engineering." (A comment he wisely retracted in time for the Republican primaries.)
By now it's scarcely necessary to rehearse the Newt's verbal excesses. Give him time and he'll commit so many, or such a blatant one, that he'll destroy his chances for the nomination without any help from his critics.

The newer the New Gingrich gets, the older he starts to seem. Much like that master of reinventing himself, the late not-so-great Richard Nixon, who was always pulling another New Nixon out of his hat. The most durable of American politicians seem to have that quality. Durable for a while, anyway. But a long while. Isn't Bill Clinton still around somewhere? In New York or Davos or wherever the next great international talkfest is to take place. The ideas broached there all seem so capital-I Important at the time, but who can remember them six weeks later? Or even six days later.
The first few times these perennial headliners rise and fall, then rise and fall again, they seem to have a protean quality, always able to shift the shape of their views to fit the needs and wants of the changing moment. There's a reason they tend to be called Comeback Kids. They have a genius for keeping up with the popular mood, even anticipating it. And for appearing to lead the crowd even as they follow it.
But after a time, though it may be a long time, people catch on. Or just grow bored. Then these stars of their own show no longer seem brilliant, flexible, full of ideas and all that, but only . . . nixonesque. Or clintonesque. How long before the adjective gingrichian enters the political vocabulary?
No wonder Bill Clinton had a good word for the Newt the other day. They're two of a kind, these Comeback Twins. Or as the former president said of the former speaker: "He thinks about this stuff all the time. He's articulate, and he tries to think of a conservative version of an idea that will solve a legitimate problem." Or at least sway voters.
The Clintons/Gingriches of the political world always seem in the market for the Next Big Idea, the one that'll give their audiences that much sought-after Aha! moment when realization dawns, or seems to, and eyes light up with interest. And admiration for the speaker. Then the moment passes, the idea is forgotten, the spotlight shifts, the dust settles, and people can't quite remember just what it was they once got so all-fired excited about.
But now is Newt's moment. Again. You might even call him the momentary candidate.
Paul Greenberg Archives
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