
 |
|
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
May 7, 2010
/ 23 Iyar 5770
Oil spreads across the Atlantic
By
Wesley Pruden
| 
|
|
|
| |
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Buyer's remorse has become a chronic disease of the democracies. Candidates who look good in winter turn out not to taste so good in summer. We can expect to see a new outbreak in Britain sometime after this weekend.
The oily goo of Barack Obama's hopey-changey slick has inevitably spread across the Atlantic, like the spill off Louisiana, only writ larger. David Cameron, who expects to become the prime minister despite falling just short of an indecisive parliamentary majority, had tried to tie himself to Mr. Obama's game of bait-and-switch, of extravagant promises made and never redeemed. The Sun, one of London's irreverent tabloids, even appropriated the famous Obama campaign poster for its election-day front page, emblazoned "Our Only Hope." This was presumably not meant as irony. Alas, we knew Britain was in sad shape, but nobody knew things were that bad.
Mr. Cameron hit it off with the president "bonded," in the ripe wet cliché of current fashion months ago when he braved the briny to take his own measure of Washington. He quickly adopted the president's campaign mantra of hopey-changey, and hired Anita Dunn, who was Mr. Obama's communications director before she left the White House to become a political consultant, to give him advice on how to copy the Obama presidential campaign. Some of his friends in London now worry that once he actually becomes the prime minister Mr. Cameron will try to emulate the messiah of South Side Chicago rather than channel the robust ghosts of Churchill, Thatcher and Reagan as he settles in as prime minister.
This is the source of the buyer's remorse that inevitably followed recent elections in various places. The lightweight emulate the lightweight, weakness and irresolution is relentlessly pursued, and trustful voters are left with only regrets, rue and remorse.
Despite the reassuring similarity in name, the Conservatives of Britain are only superficially similar to small-c American conservatives. Though more appealing to Americans than Gordon Brown and the Labor party, Mr. Cameron and the Conservatives aren't expected to cultivate an appetite to curtail the growth, or even correct the fundamental weakness, of the welfare state that Britain adopted decades ago. Britain's national health care, with its filthy hospitals, long waits for critical surgery and impersonal physicians, long ago became sacrosanct to the British public. Mr. Cameron, no passionate fan of Maggie Thatcher, isn't expected to pursue her agenda of limited government, low taxes, reduced spending and the job-making economy that Britain needs.
Mr. Obama's determined effort to remake America in the image of the European welfare state, on the other hand, naturally strikes Europeans and many Britons as nothing much out of the ordinary. Mr. Obama's runaway public spending, appeasement of Islamist enemies bent on destroying the West, weakening of the military, and a sagging economy that spiked his popularity at home, is a puzzle to many in Britain.
But Britons who haven't yet given up dream of Mr. Cameron learning from the president's mistakes, even if they understand that Mr. Obama doesn't regard the consequences of striking leftward as "mistakes." Nile Gardiner, a columnist for the London Telegraph, observes that Mr. Obama's America may be declining as a world power, but has lessons for Britain: "David Cameron must learn from [Mr.] Obama's mistakes, and take Britain down a completely different path based on clearly defined conservative principles, which advance rather than constrain British leadership."
This would be a tall order any time, but rarely more so than now. The new prime minister will inherit a dreary legacy of economic decline that threatens all of Europe. Greece is bankrupt and its European benefactors are determined to impose stark correctives to its spendthrift ways. Some economists warn that Britain may be next. Worst of all, nobody is looking to London and what used to be the British empire for a rescue. The disciplinarian in boots, armed with a whip of braided currency, is the German lady.
"Nothing less than the future of Europe is at stake," Angela Merkel said on Thursday. "The happy tale of German history since World War II and our emergence as a free, united and strong country cannot be separated from the European Union. Europe today is looking to Germany . . . Immediate help is needed to ensure the financial stability of the eurozone. This must be done to avoid a chain-reaction to the European and international financial system."
Reality not-so-warmly welcomes the new PM. In London. Happy days are not necessarily here again.
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.
Wesley Pruden Archives
© 2007 Wesley Pruden
|
|

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
|