
 |
|
May 13, 2013
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
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
|
| |
Jewish World Review
August 26, 2008
/ 25 Menachem-Av 5768
A revival meeting, not a hanging
By
Wesley Pruden
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Barack Obama is finally ready for the dreaded 3 a.m. telephone call. Now he can answer it and hand the phone to Joe Biden.
By the time Joe hands it back - after spinning a tale to Vladimir Putin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about who said what to whom, the crisis will be over. (One way or the other.) Joe starts talking and figures he'll eventually think of something to say. Sometimes he does, and often wishes he hadn't.
The early arrivals in Denver are having fun recycling the rich trove of Bidenisms. Joe's the most garrulous member of the U.S. Senate, which is no small distinction. He was once timed taking eight minutes to ask an uncomplicated question of a witness that needed only a simple "yes" or "no." The Gaffe Patrol is ready for him.
His most often recycled "gaffes" are about race, naturally, the media's reigning obsession in this campaign. No. 1 "gaffe" was Joe's describing Barack Obama as "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Which he is, of course, but Joe forgot which century we're in and that such an intended compliment is almost as egregious as telling a beautiful woman she's "beautiful." Mr. Obama might not have been amused, but he wasn't offended. Joe escaped with a full grovel.
The commentariat was almost as offended by Joe's reassurance to Southern Democrats that they shouldn't take him for the Northeastern liberal wimp that some people think when they think Democrat. "You don't know my state," Joe said. "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is anything but a Northeastern liberal state." The subtext was not necessarily that Joe yearns for a return to slavery, just that Southerners shouldn't write him off as a Yankee milkleg. If Southern Democrats weren't offended, who else had a right to be?
Joe elaborated on his down-home theme four months later in South Carolina, with an apology in behalf of Delaware. "Delaware fought beside the North only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way." Actually, there was only one, Maryland, and as blue as Maryland has become most any Marylander of that day would have been happy to give anyone a ride to Virginia to join Stonewall and Marse Robert. But geography and history are as ancient Greek to the Ivy-educated worthies of press and tube, who so disdain the past that they can rarely identify all four grandparents. You might have thought Joe was applying for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
All this Gaffe Patrolling is unfair to the man who would be Barack Obama's vice president. Joe's not a bad sort, and if he sometimes forgets to engage his brain before he turns on his mouth, that only makes him endearing. Besides, he's well within the Democratic tradition. Think Hubert Humphrey with not as much to say. Newspaper columnists, on the other hand, usually get to go over their remarks once or twice (or thrice). Joe's a blogger without benefit of Internet.
The party tradition of exuberance will get a test when the Democratic National Convention opens Monday a century to the year since William Jennings Bryan was nominated in Denver for a third time, 12 years after he set a Chicago convention on fire with his Cross of Gold oration (... "you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold." Barack Obama's most memorable lines, about wanting to be "a citizen of the world," or that he's "the man we have been waiting for," is pretty mild stuff. Near beer, not 40-proof moonshine.
Enter Joe Biden, from whom the Obama campaign has extracted solemn promises to keep his tongue under tight control. Giddy with his new celebrity, Joe means to be the greatest bare-knuckle brawler since John L. Sullivan went 75 rounds with Jake Kilrain in 105-degree heat in Richburg, Miss., in 1889. We haven't seen the second banana so excited since Dan Quayle jumped on a fire truck for a ride down Bourbon Street when he was chosen by George H.W. Bush in New Orleans in 1988.
Political conventions, as H.L. Mencken observed, fall somewhere between a hanging and a revival meeting. They're somewhere between a suspended sentence and evensong now, but this is No. 16 for me, and I wouldn't miss the party.
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 in chief 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
|