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March 22, 2010
Yossi Klein Halevi: Was Obama's confrontation with Israel premeditated?
JWisdom.comWhy Hollywood and Timelessness don't flash-back, flash-forward or mesh with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (7 minutes)
Kevin Baxter: Boxer has a will to win, and to worship
March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk

Jewish World Review March 17, 2009 / 21 Adar 5769

A little stubble hints of trouble

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Some of Barack Obama's friends are speculating that the honeymoon is over. We've reached that exquisite point in the marriage when the party of the first part and the party of the second part agree that the evening's honeymoon entertainment will be a movie on DVD and that anything spicy must come from room service.


This is only natural. Only FDR succeeded in getting elected president-for-life, and we put a guarantee in the Constitution that we won't be tempted to allow that again. President Obama's poll numbers, though important now only inside the Beltway, are beginning to subside, down 10 points from Inauguration Day. The future, as Yogi Berra might say, is where lots of things haven't happened yet.


But Barack Obama was sold as the supernatural president, probably not born of a virgin but he kept fit by occasionally walking from Honolulu to the mainland. The usual restraints on human presidents would not apply to him, as anyone in the cult was only too eager to tell us as the lazy days of summer yielded to bright blue October and finally to the ascension on Nov. 5. You still have to be careful how you phrase criticism of the president lest you be accused of racism and lesser crimes and misdemeanors, but even some of the sycophants are beginning to find their voices, like puppies fascinated by the sound of their first tentative woofs, playful growls and baby barks. Skepticism is tolerated, if you keep it nice. Sic itur ad astra. It's written in the stars.


"Obama still enjoys broad public support," writes David Broder, the oracle to the Democratic wonkery, in The Washington Post, "but it is stronger for him personally than for his policies. Some of those policies are bafflingly complex, and all of them are untested. Among those who follow government closely, there is an unmistakable change in tone [over] the past weeks ... politicians and journalists [are] measuring him with the same skeptical eye they apply to everyone else."


Well, not quite. Democratic politicians and mainstream journalists still jealously protect their investment in the great One, wedded as they are to the idea of Barack Obama no matter who the actual Barack Obama is turning out to be. (Republican politicians are still trying to recover from November, like an addled goose hit on the head with a long-handled wooden spoon.) But the point is right on.


The president is learning with the rest of us that the damage his early panic did to feed the Wall Street selling frenzy won't be corrected by warm and fuzzy optimism. His "State of the Union" speech to Congress and the bad news in his budget message revealed the breadth and scope of how he intends to expand the government in a way that it can never be cut down to size, no matter how sane and sensible a successor might be. Like all presidents, he talked a very different talk when he was campaigning. But he was unique. Sensible people actually believed the magic tricks. Rabbits actually did live in his hat. He actually could saw the girl in half and paste her back together again.


He would never countenance earmarks; his budget includes 9,000 of them. He scoffed at John McCain's idea of taxing health care benefits to pay for health care for the poor; now he thinks that might not be a bad idea. He never expected anyone to notice the difference.


Barack Obama is the product of what the political philosopher Shelby Steele calls "redemptive liberalism," the notion that redeeming America of its sins is too important, too urgent, to leave to the working of individual freedom. Nothing short of government social engineering can do it. The only way to redeem the public schools from the sin of segregation was to destroy them through draconian busing, diversity by bureaucratic formula and discarding standards of actual learning. This, argues Mr. Steele, gives liberals the right to say of the ruin and wreckage, "at least we did something." Measure the activism, not the results. It's the thought that counts. (The failure of redemptive liberalism is why liberals, having stunk up the word "liberal," now insist on calling themselves "progressives.")


President Obama and his allies know that reality will soon overtake their fantasy of transforming America into a little Europe. He's aware that Americans don't want to be like Europe. That's why we're here instead of there. So he has to hurry. A little stubble on the morning after has destroyed illusions on many a honeymoon.

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 Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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