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February 13, 2012
Binyamin Rose: Back to the Bunker: How a life-risking act by a Christian family during the Holocaust saved a family and built a thriving community a world away
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David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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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
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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
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Jewish World Review
Sept. 11, 2009
/ 22 Elul 5769
The Van Jones Matter
By
Charles Krauthammer
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
So Van Jones, the defenestrated White House green-jobs czar, once called Republicans "a--holes." Big deal. I've said worse about Democrats. I've said worse about Republicans. I've said worse about members of my family (you know who you are).
How prissy have we become? Are we allowed no salt in our linguistic diets?
Having once written a column praising Vice President Cheney's pithy deployment of the F-word on the floor of the Senate, no less I rise in defense of Jones. True, Jones's particular choice of epithet had none of the one-syllable concision, the onomatopoeic suggestiveness, the explosive charm of Cheney's. But you don't fire a guy for style.
Another charge was that Jones was a self-proclaimed communist. I can't get too excited about this either. In today's America, to be a communist is a pose, not a conviction. After the Soviet collapse, Marxism is a relic, a pathetic anachronism reduced to its last redoubts: North Korea, Cuba and the English departments of the more expensive American universities.
In any case, every administration is allowed a couple of wing nuts among its 8,000 appointees. As long as they're not in charge of foreign policy or the Fed, who cares?
Other critics are scandalized that Jones once accused "white environmentalists" of "essentially steering poison into the people of colored communities."
In fact, from a global perspective, Jones is right. Environmentalists overwhelmingly white and middle/upper class have blocked drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. From where do you think the world gets the missing oil? From the poor, exploited, poisoned people of the Niger Delta, the Amazon Basin and other infinitely less-regulated and infinitely dirtier regions of the Third World.
Affluent enviros are all for wind farms, until one is proposed that might mar the serenity of a sail from the crew-necked precincts near Nantucket Sound. Then it's clean energy for thee, not for me.
Jones's genius as an ideological entrepreneur was to mine white liberal anxiety they are quite aware of their own NIMBY hypocrisy by selling them the "green jobs" shtick to reconcile class/racial guilt with environmental enthusiasm, thus making them feel better about themselves.
That's why Jones rose so far. That's why he was such a "progressive" star. That's why, as top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett put it, "we've been watching him" and were so eager to recruit him to the White House.
In the White House no more. Why? He's gone for one reason and one reason only. You can't sign a petition demanding not one but four investigations of the charge that the Bush administration deliberately allowed Sept. 11, 2001 i.e., collaborated in the worst massacre ever perpetrated on American soil and be permitted in polite society, let alone have a high-level job in the White House.
Unlike the other stuff (see above), this is no trivial matter. It's beyond radicalism, beyond partisanship. It takes us into the realm of political psychosis, a malignant paranoia that, unlike the Marxist posturing, is not amusing. It's dangerous. In America, movements and parties are required to police their extremes. Bill Buckley did that with Birchers. Liberals need to do that with "truthers."
You can no more have a truther in the White House than you can have a Holocaust denier a person who creates a hallucinatory alternative reality in the service of a fathomless malice.
But reality doesn't daunt Jones's defenders. One Obama administration source told ABC that Jones hadn't read the 2004 petition carefully enough, an excuse echoed by Howard Dean.
Carefully enough? It demanded the investigation of charges "that people within the current [Bush] administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
Where is the confusing fine print? Where is the syntactical complexity? Where is the perplexing ambiguity? An eighth-grader could tell you exactly what it means. A Yale Law School graduate could not?
No need to worry about Jones, however. Great career move. He's gone from marginal loon to liberal martyr. His speaking fees have just doubled. It's only a matter of time before he gets his own show on MSNBC.
But on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 a day when there were no truthers among us, just Americans struck dumb by the savagery of what had been perpetrated on their innocent fellow citizens a decent respect for the memory of that day requires that truthers, who derangedly desecrate it, be asked politely to leave. By everyone.
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