
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 30, 2009
/ 13 Teves 5770
Predictions of Things Not to Come
By
Paul Greenberg
| 
|
|
|
| |
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's normally the most news-fallow week of the year, the one between Christmas and New Year's. Consider it the best of Christmas gifts. Along with Congress' not being in session. No doubt its members are enjoying their time away, but surely not as much as the country is.
Everybody can use a break this time of year, but there's only so much cheer a body can take. And this week call it National Bicarbonate of Soda Week gives us all a chance to pause between festivities and regroup. Silence and solitude are seldom so welcome, or refreshing. As a friend said on looking over all the upcoming events on her calendar: "There's too much going on." Her comment comes back every time I pick up the morning paper.
This week's news vacuum tends to be filled by commentators who may have nothing much to say but still have a deadline to meet. I understand. That blank computer screen can stare you down like a cobra. I'm old enough to remember when it was a blank sheet of typewriter paper. Technology changes; slow news weeks don't. Like show business, commentary must go on, even when there's little news to comment on.
The seasonal rhythm of the news is echoed in the rhythm of the newspaper business or, as a friend of mine used to call it, the newspaper dodge. Heck, it beats working.
Most weeks are hectic, filled to overflowing with the latest vanity-of-vanities that demands attention for all of 30 seconds. If that long. But with nothing much happening, what's a subject-starved commentator to do?
Why, turn out a year-end, of course, looking back over 2009. There's a riskier and therefore more engaging approach to take at year's end: Make a few predictions about the year to come, confident that by next December 31st, no one will remember the ones that didn't pan out. As for the ones that prove prescient, the commentator can relied on to remind us. (Those of us in the columnizing trade have never been overly burdened by a sense of modesty.)
Drew Pearson, who was even better known than Glenn Beck in his Trumanesque times, used to end his radio program by making his Predictions of Things to Come! ("79 percent accurate!" Or was it 84 percent? Memory grows furtive. Whatever it was, the factoid was impressive to adolescent minds of all ages.) I can't remember a single one of Swami Pearson's predictions now, but, always ahead of the game, he had written a column even before the results of the presidential election of 1948 were in. It was about who would be in Thomas E. Dewey's cabinet.
I'd gladly join the Predictions for 2010 crowd if not for the sad fate of so many Predictions for 2009. Foreign Policy magazine, which is no slouch at pretentious prose itself, was unkind enough to dig up some of last year's duds. Among my favorites:
•
"I do know this. At the end of this first year of Congress, there will be an energy bill on the president's desk." Rahm Emanuel, April 19, 2009. That confident assertion may be only one of the many things Rahm Emanuel doesn't know. He's got a million of 'em.
•
"Declaring that his work is done, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will announce he'll leave the Fed upon the expiration of his four-year term as chairman on Jan. 31, 2010. While mostly not his fault, the recession has hurt his standing with the Obama Administration. ... He'll be succeeded by Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary under the Clinton Administration." BusinessWeek, January 2, 2009.
Praising the chairman's "calm and wisdom," Barack Obama announced in August that he was re-appointing Mr. Bernanke as head of the Fed. Maybe the president doesn't read BusinessWeek.
•
"The economy went into freefall and is still falling and we don't know where the bottom will be until we get there and there's no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom." George Soros, February 20, 2009.
Only a month later, Soros the Great declared that the "the collapse of the financial system" had been averted and the economy was recovering. This is what happens when a classic economic panic is mistaken for a return of the Great Depression, a common enough error last year.
With such examples to follow, I think I'll just stick to observing, in the most stirring tones, like Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, that the future lies before us! You can quote me on that.
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 "/home/jwreview/public_html/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
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
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
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|