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February 10, 2012
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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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Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
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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)
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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
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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
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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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
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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
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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. 19, 2008
/ 19 Elul 5768
Scary times on the third rail
By
Wesley Pruden
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's a little early to play the race card, but the Obama partisans, if not Barack Obama himself, are scared. They don't know what else to do to get their expectations, so carefully nurtured over spring and summer, in line with reality. The mainstream media's ganging up on a pregnant 17-year-old girl didn't work. Neither did the candidate's calling her mother a pig.
After Mr. Obama became the inevitable president, dispatching Hillary Clinton, the inevitable nominee, his cult thought it was going to be a downhill coast to a left turn into Pennsylvania Avenue. Alas, the slam dunk - the favorite metaphor of midsummer - now looks more like a lost ball. Suddenly it's all elbows and rim shots. The politics of hope has been reduced to the politics of merely hopeful.
He sent his wife out yesterday to warn voters not to vote for someone just because she's "cute," and when that got a harsh look from one of her handlers she quickly added that she was talking about herself. Michelle is cute enough, but she's not running for anything, so far as anyone knows. (Maybe in France.) Joe Biden, the Democratic dream candidate for nearly two full days in Denver, is stumbling like everybody thought he would. He told a rally Thursday that higher taxes are coming and paying them is a "patriotic" duty. Just shut up and pay up.
The small but steady Obama lead in the polls, having evaporated in the wake of the two conventions, is enough to scare confident Democrats. The betting odds favoring Mr. Obama were off the board only a month ago; now those odds are essentially even. John McCain, moving up to a tie or even going ahead by a point or two in overnight tracking polls, has moved out front in the race for electoral votes, as measured in the state-by-state polling.
If all that were not enough bad news, John McCain and the unreliable Republicans just won't raise the race issue. Heavy-handed though some of the McCain rhetoric and television commercials about the legitimate issues may be, the Republicans and their friends have stayed apart from anything suggesting race, understanding that race has replaced Social Security as the deadly "third rail" of American politics, something for everybody to think about but not for anybody to talk about except in empty platitudes. Goading John McCain's friends, if not the senator himself, to talk about race, so the Obama boodlers and bundlers reckon, would inoculate him against having to answer embarrassing questions about who he has been hanging out with over the past two decades and prevent critical examination of his Senate record (if anyone could find it).
When the campaign moved through September, summer waned, and nobody in the McCain camp showed signs of crying race, someone else had to do it.
When someone asked Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, why Mr. Obama can't seem to achieve take-off speed, she stepped up to put a match to the kindling. "Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African-American?" she asked. "That may be a factor. All the code language, all that doesn't show up in the polls. And that may be a factor for some people."
Out in the down-ballot fly-over country, where the Obama magic is dissipating in the local legislative races, subtlety rarely has to be a virtue. "Race, that's the only reason people in the Valley won't vote for him," says state Rep. Thomas Letson, who thought he had a lock on re-election to the Ohio legislature and now thinks maybe he doesn't. "There are a thousand reasons to vote for Obama and one reason why you won't. Race."
Another rattled Ohio incumbent, state Rep. Robert Hagan, told the Youngstown Vindicator that it's the independents, on whom the politicians depend to rescue them from close encounters of the scariest kind, who are the racists.
That might not be a death rattle in the throats of Democrats, but it sounds like something more than throat-clearing. Mr. Obama told a rally in Las Vegas that his supporters have to "get in the faces of Republicans," presumably to say and do things "the transcendent One" never would. He's concerned, perhaps rightly, about the tendency of voters to tell pollsters they'll vote for a black candidate when they actually won't, lest they be regarded as racists. Nobody puts a number on it, though one Democratic pollster says "unless Obama has a five-point polling lead on Election Day he's toast." That's scary, and it's not yet Halloween.
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.
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