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Oct. 13, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient

Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 2, 2007 / 18 Menachem-Av, 5767

This war is lost?

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | James Taranto, the very clever Wall Street Journal writer and editor of OpinionJournal.com, has a thesis regarding our political culture. He believes the liberals are victims of their own cultural hegemony. They say things that are quite inaccurate. Their inaccuracies are repeated by their intellectual look-alikes throughout the culture. They reread their inaccuracies and are roundly confirmed in their ignorance. Conservatives think the liberal opposition is composed of liars or suave deceivers. Actually, our liberals are sincere in their ignorant beliefs. Grant them at least this much.


If our liberals were not so ubiquitously dominant in our political culture, they might be confronted occasionally by disagreement. It would smarten them up. It might even cheer them up, for they have a very gloomy view of the world. Today they are profoundly convinced, as one of their very brightest has put it, that the war in Iraq is "lost." The very bright fellow is that rumpled, loveable old curmudgeon from Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid. He is not the only one. As far as I can tell, almost all the Democratic presidential candidates think the war is lost. Congress abounds with solons who are calling for retreat. Just the other day, I watched Rep. John Conyers intoning this defeatist line to Wolf Blitzer, and Blitzer, too, seemed to agree this war is lost.


Rather heroically, Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, submitted a Washington Post piece two weeks ago arguing victory is still attainable in Iraq and history would view President George W. Bush benignly. The hoots and the ha-has from the liberals are still to be heard. Of course, he had a point. The new strategy of Gen. David Petraeus seems to be working. Casualties among civilians in Iraq are perceptibly lower. Sheiks in once hostile provinces such as Anbar and Diyala are joining forces with us against the savages of al Qaeda, the Iraqi military is gaining strength, and wider areas of the country are assuming a semblance of law and order.


Now, two critics of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq have returned from an eight-day visit there and published a piece in The New York Times that sounds very much as if the writers have come to Kristol's point of view. What will happen to our liberal friends if they read it? Perhaps Rep. Conyers will perceive it as satire. It is hard to imagine anything shaking his conviction that Iraq is a lost cause.


The critics writing in the Times are analysts from the liberal Brookings Institution, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack. They chide the defeatist critics of the administration who they say "seem unaware of the significant changes taking place" in Iraq. "As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with." They conclude by saying, "There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008."


That would take us into an election year with the Democrats saying the war is lost. What will they say if we are, as these analysts seem to think, winning? My guess is that they will continue to say we are losing. Return to Taranto's insight. The political culture is almost totally befogged by liberal misconceptions and bugaboos. It is, as we say at The American Spectator, a Kultursmog . It pollutes the liberals' minds and renders them oblivious of any evidence contrary to their gloomy views.


Thus, they will continue to say we are losing. They may pipe down somewhat, but they are not likely to admit to being wrong. How would they know? If their calls for retreat gain no support from the electorate, perhaps they will change the subject to another of their favorite misconceptions, to wit, the economy is going to hell. Actually, the economy is chugging along in a healthy and protracted period of growth. For the past five years, per capita gross domestic product has grown at 11 percent. We are living through a vast global economic boom, and the Democrats seem completely unawares. In 2008, their presidential candidate will be moaning that we have lost a war and are economically in a hell of a mess. The Republican candidate only will have to point to a healthy economy and the success of Gen. Petraeus' splendid Army to win. Then, the Democrats will whine that the Republicans stole the election from them. That is my prediction, and I base it on the evidence.

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 Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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