(AP Photo) Twin brothers Moshe, right, and Shaya Ztironenbaum, vote in their first presidential election as they check in with poll workers at PS 223 in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York
This has never happened in my lifetime. I never sat and worried about the outcome of an election like this one. There were times that I was concerned, like in 2000 with Hillary and President Bush, and again in 2004. There was also that day in 1998 where I hoped that Al D'Amato could somehow beat Chuck, but that didn't happen either. Leave it up to Jews in New York to kick a friend like Al to the curb like unwanted trash.. Today is different, we're not talking swiftboat veterans against Kerry here, or that Hillary and Bill were 60's radicals, we're talking dangerous. I know, I know I'm being a reactionary, I don't see the HOPE that is BHO, but what can I say? I look at his friends and es vert mir shvartz far di eygen, no pun intended. I look at the glorious ideas he's come up with and I shudder.I guess some of you may have expected me to go with the anti-establishment Jewish flow and vote for BHO, just to show you all how cool and with it I am. Sorry to disappoint you; I'm as uncool as they come when it comes to politics.
G-d protect us....
19 comments:
this was a sad day for Klal Israel
Chaim Lax a/ah ,Moshe Rubashkin and now the New President
And do add to the confusion, it is a Tuesday, Shehuchpal Bo Ki Tov. Es iz a fintzter golus. G-d help us.
"I'm as uncool as they come when it comes to politics."
Cuz otherwise you're so cool and pretty and witty and... you know...
You start to remind me of Tzemach of old.
now we are going to see the Lubs with Obama lighting the menorah in the white House
I'm sorry I remind you of him. I'm sooo not Tzemach.
For once,I totally agree with you.
Es vert mir eych finster in di eygen ven ich tracht iber di ganze geschichte. I could not sleep last night. Is this the begining of the end of the Golden Age of US Jewry?
May I take a page out of the journal of the Rayaatz and issue a hedyot's call for a Cheshbon hanefesh. Its an es Zora. Most of our fellow Jews don't understand it.
The issues are :the state of the American jewish community and the possible compromise of its status in regards to the World Muslim threat.
2. The share the wealth politics of BHO
3. His post national view of the US and Israel.
Es iz mamash a shrek veeyn lanu lihishoen. ela al Avinu shebashomayim.
I am old enough to remember the Missile Crisis in 1962 we were scared but I knew we had a leader in CH and that he would get us out of it.
Alas we are leaderless today.
SHNEUR
don't be so fatalist
Riboino shel Olam knows what he is doing
have Bitachon that is going to be good
after all, 77% of Jewish vote was for Obama
You see that the Aibeshter listen to every single Yid
lev melokhim...
"Es vert mir eych finster in di eygen ven ich tracht iber di ganze geschichte. I could not sleep last night. Is this the begining of the end of the Golden Age of US Jewry?
May I take a page out of the journal of the Rayaatz and issue a hedyot's call for a Cheshbon hanefesh. Its an es Zora. Most of our fellow Jews don't understand it.
The issues are :the state of the American Jewish community and the possible compromise of its status in regards to the World Muslim threat."
Rahm Emmanuel, Dennis Ross et.all he will be more right-wing about Israel than you think. I believe his first big move in this direction will be allowing Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
"2. The share the wealth politics of BHO"
As the Rebbe noted in a letter this need not worry you as most Frum Jews will benefit greatly from Obama's financial programs.
"3. His post national view of the US and Israel."
He is a Zionist and will pursue Zionist policies. His speech mentioned being against any country which works against security. Obama will shock you with his pro-Israel policies.
"Es iz mamash a shrek veeyn lanu lihishoen. ela al Avinu shebashomayim."
I think you should write your Tzavo'oh and build a bunker and stockpile on canned goods
"I am old enough to remember the Missile Crisis in 1962"
Obama will nuke all his enemies including those in Crown Heights Borough Park and Williamsburg.
" we were scared but I knew we had a leader in CH and that he would get us out of it.
Alas we are leaderless today."
It scares me who the likes if you would like for a leader. You'd revote for Bush?
Also, what does a "Nationalist America" exactly mean to you and which policies does it proclaim?
Here is a perfect summation of how you guys feel about Obama? Y'all should team up with the good folks at (link on bottom)
"This is a very low point in Western history. The largest and most powerful White country (i.e., America) will soon be commanded by a mulatto. Are mulattoes Western? By the way, if you subtract the female vote and the mud vote, Obama wouldn’t have won the election - an interesting detail."
from the most antisemitic radical right internet site http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/?p=3324#comments
nice to hear from you, Bray.
Noting:
The same can be said for the far left, so stop.
Noting. You probably believe in hashdadlus when it comes to your Parnosseh, shidduchim , and your gashmius , but the future of American Jewry and Israel you tell us to rely on Nissim and some very krume sevoros that disregard past behavior of the political players you mention.
I wonder how many Mosdos Hatore, shuls etc will survive a spreading of the wealth among wealthy Orthodox Jews in the US.
A quick drive through Boro Pk reveals a lot of wealth to be spread.By the way if you believe even poor Jews (especially Jewish looking Jews) will get any of the new wealth you are probably a candidate to buy the World trade Center.
To start with his university programs. All 18-22 year olds attending yeshiva will be getting 4000 a year.
There will be health care for those who are not being covered now. My family did not have and could not afford health insurance and were not within the bracket to get medicaid.
Tax relief for those making below 250,000 should help many people. Increased funding for early child care will benefit the frum world greatly.
Two things, I admit, do worry me, (and I want to mention that I do not worship Obama but find most of his policies agreeable to my world view) Israel and the forcasted 7% increase in payrolls to bussinesses making over 250,000. I just think there must be a more careful approach to funding, and such a drastic sudden measure could kill off many businesses. That said, I think there are other ways to get funding. Taxing those making over a million a year should be increased exponentially, the more so for those making even more.
Schneur, you know the tanya about the kiton shel mayim and how the Alter Rebbe explains that it is wrong to take the dictum to mean that a person can live a wealthy lavish material lifestyle while his friend is starving... Chayechch Kodmin only refers to the last drop of water, not a pass for private jets and Bentleys while others are starving....
Concerning foreign policy. Last week's New Yorker scooped that Republican Chuck Hegel will be joining Obama's foreign policy team, together with Powell. He will be centrist in foreign policy, and though he may pull out the troops from Iraq, he will be vigilant about Afghanistan and ready to use force at those who disturb the peace and are bent on terrorism and murder.
But I am a bit worried, in all truth, about Israel and I am hoping his efforts at peace there (the Rebbe mentioned, btw, that it is in American self-interests to pursue peace in the Middle east and does not signify anti-Zionism)will fall, as did most of the efforts of previous administrations. I support Bibi in Israel which I think would derail USA efforts.
And he will let Israel kill off Iran's nuclear thing very soon.
noting
and he'll pay my mortgage, right?
Not your mortgage. You have a job. He will only pay for mine. :)
BTW, Tzig, I failed to mention to you that as of a week a go I am gainfully employed.
RABBONIM ARE KOVEIA TAANIS
Rabbonim have set a taanis for this Thursday, November 6. Special tefillos are to be said as well.
Conicidentally, the initials of the taanis are Barack Hussein oBama (BH"B).
Tzig-
Since the Rebbe said that davka a sheitel should be worn, how do you feel about the gadol hador's latest psak that sheitels (or any sheitel you wife would be willing to wear) are "mamesh an erva?
Read it here:
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/95423/Harsh+Words+Against+Sheitels.html
or here:
http://hamercaz.com/hamercaz/site/news_item.php?id=1949
Listen here:
http://hamercaz.com/hamercaz/site/mfile.php?id=3588
Great article about "How The Media Spun Campaign '08" by Don Feder in the latest JP. (How the media inflicted a tragedy on America.)
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/36976/How_The_Media_Spun_C.html
Based on her interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPzkZl-euq8&feature=related with Sen. Joe Biden, we may assume that WFTV (Orlando) Anchor Barbara West: 1. Did not graduate from a school of communications, 2. Will never receive an award from the Society of Professional Journalists, 3. Is unlikely to be employed by The New York Times in the foreseeable future, and 4. Will soon be working with Joe the Plumber, installing bathroom fixtures.
Silly rabbit - didn't West know that tough questions are reserved for Republicans?
Yet there she was asking old leaden-tongued Joe how his running mate's spread-the-wealth platform differed from standard Marxist redistributionism (from each according to his abilities, etc.) The vice-presidential candidate was reduced to sputtering "Are you kidding?" and "I don't know who's writing your questions."
I'm surprised the Delaware senator didn't remind West that when a TV reporter posed impertinent queries to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1929, FDR penned an article for People magazine reminding his fellow Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you."
As all good journalists knoweth, you're only supposed to ask embarrassing questions of Republicans. As a media minion, your curiosity should be confined to Sarah Palin's wardrobe, her daughter's pregnancy and Cindy McCain's past addiction to prescription painkillers.
West's grilling of Biden (the campaign retaliated by canceling a later interview with his wife) was so extraordinary for the mainstream media as to constitute a freak occurrence - like a snowstorm in July or a British MP plagiarizing one of Biden's speeches.
Media bias in past presidential campaigns (going back to 1964) is nothing next to the way the drive-bys managed, manipulated and mangled coverage of the McCain-Obama race.
The media doesn't even try to disguise its schoolgirl crush. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, by a margin of 70% to 9%, those polled in mid-October said most journalists wanted Obama to win, over John McCain.
At that stage of the 2004 campaign, the public said the media favored Kerry over Bush by 50% to 22% (comparable to 2000, when 47% of those surveyed said the press liked Gore, versus 23% who said reporters leaned toward Bush).
The public's perception is confirmed by a Project for Excellence in Journalism study, which looked at coverage of McCain and Obama in the six weeks following the nominating conventions. It found that while 57% of stories about the GOP nominee were negative and 14% positive, Obama's positives/negatives were 36%/35%. In other words, there was four times as much negative coverage of McCain as of Obama.
* * * * *
If the news media is a criminal conspiracy, The New York Times is its Vito Corleone. The Gray Lady sets the tone for the rest of the press, which sounds a lot like the Dixie Chicks humming the Internationale.
You probably didn't know that besides editing the editorial pages of the Times, Andrew Rosenthal is also a stand-up comic. Performing live at the Association of National Advertisers annual conference, Rosenthal observed that The New York Times "aims to ensure opinion and news are kept separate, even as the Internet increasingly blurs the line" (as reported by Advertising Age on October 17).
For sheer hypocrisy, this is hard to beat. In the real world, The New York Times is to objectivity what Jack the Ripper was to women's rights.
After seeing their candidate bludgeoned in its news pages for months, on September 22 the McCain campaign charged that The New York Times is "150%" behind Barack Obama. Said McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt: "Whatever The New York Times once was [in the middle of the 19th century?], it is not today by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor Palin and excuses Obama."
This is a revelation on par with: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issues with Israel.
In late July, Rosenthal's paragon of objectivity ran an opinion piece by Obama ("My Plan for Iraq"), then rejected a similar offering by McCain - the rationale being that McCain's piece didn't "mirror" Obama's. As a top McCain aide explained, the paper simply didn't agree with McCain's Iraq policy, and wanted him to change his position, not "re-work the draft." That's fair.
From the moment McCain announced his choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Times attack machine went into hyper-drive. A division of investigative reporters was deployed to Juneau, literally sifting through garbage to get dirt on Palin.
Every aspect of the lady's personal life has been subjected to media scrutiny.
On September 2, the Times ran a convention story ("Palin's Daughter's Pregnancy Interrupts G.O.P. Convention Script") worthy of The National Enquirer. Her daughter, Bristol, age 17, was five-months pregnant, the family announced. The Times covered the disclosure with glee. Here was a pro-family candidate who was such a lousy mother that she couldn't keep her teen-aged daughter from getting pregnant - this from a newspaper that believes in giving condoms to 14-year-olds, without parental notification.
From there, it was a dizzying descent into tabloid hell. The Times breathlessly informed readers that the Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and that their first child, Track, was born eight months later.
The article hit rock bottom, when it reported "some claimed that Ms. Palin had not actually given birth to Trig [her youngest son], but that Bristol had, and that the family had covered it up." As support for this absurdity, the Times cited photos posted on "various websites" supposedly showing that the governor didn't look pregnant in the months leading up to Trig's birth.
In his speech to the Association of National Advertisers, Rosenthal compared the wild rumors and preposterous theories flying around the Internet with impeccable reporting at The New York Times. But the paper is willing to repeat the most outlandish cyber speculation, if it suits its purposes.
Rosenthal's rag was also fascinated with Palin's wardrobe. The Republican National Committee is reported to have spent $150,000 to outfit her in a manner befitting a vice-presidential candidate. An October 23 New York Times story mentioned unnamed Republicans expressing "consternation" at the Palin "shopping spree" and wondering if this would "compromise her standing as Senator McCain's chief emissary to working-class voters."
Naturally, there was no speculation on how Obama could campaign as a middle-class hero attired in $1,500-suits. At least Palin didn't get her duds compliments of Tony Rezko.
But most Times coverage of Palin focused on her alleged lack of experience, corny rhetoric and, well, the contention that she just wasn't vice-presidential material.
In an October 3 story on the vice-presidential debate, the Times termed Palin's performance "unusual theater," while stressing her use of phrases like "a heck of a lot."
The governor was said to rely on a "steady grin, folksy manner and carefully scripted talking points." In other words, she's a hick, a rube, a Republican Stepford Wife who can't function without 3x5 cards.
You may recall another politician whose intelligence the media questioned because of his use of index cards. He was the president who won the Cold War and gave us the longest peacetime prosperity in our history.
A Times editorial, which ran the same day, charged that after "a series of stumbling interviews that raised serious doubts even among conservatives [again, unnamed] about her ability to serve as vice president," Palin "never really got beyond talking points in 90 minutes, mostly repeating clichés and tired attack lines and energetically refusing to answer far too many questions."
For The New York Times, anything not heard recently at a Manhattan cocktail party is a cliché or a tired attack line.
Compare the foregoing to the Times's carefully crafted coverage of Biden, whose gaffes are either buried with the TV listings or totally ignored.
Discussing the current financial crisis, Biden reminded us that in 1929, President Roosevelt (who didn't become president until 1933) went on television (which wasn't widely used until the late 1940s) to explain the Great Depression to the American people.
Speaking to Virginia coal miners, Biden revealed "I am a hard coal miner." The closest anyone in his family came to working in the mines was a great-grandfather who was a mining engineer.
At a September 9 rally in Columbia, Missouri, Obama's running mate urged a Democratic state senator in a wheelchair to "stand up" so the crowd could get a better look at him - all of which was studiously ignored by the mainstream media.
Then there was Biden's prediction, at a Seattle fundraiser, that six months after he took office, foreign powers would "test" President Obama the way Khrushchev tested JFK in the Cuban missile crisis, thus implying Obama is so green that his inexperienced hand at the helm would invite an international crisis.
Other than Fox News, the networks refused to air the remarks. The day after the event, the Times mentioned it briefly in the 11th paragraph of a page A-18 story headlined "Obama Briefly Leaving Trail to See Ill Grandmother."
If Palin had said McCain is so old and feeble that his election would have our adversaries circling like vultures, it would have appeared in The New York Times above the page-1 fold.
The Palin Treatment wasn't confined to coverage of the Alaska governor. Candidate's spouses are usually off limits. Not this year. Not when the candidate is John McCain.
In an October 18 profile, the Times just had to mention Cindy McCain's past addiction to prescription pain-killers - a story that was old news a decade ago.
The article noted that the McCains are apart much of the time - he in D.C., she in their Arizona home. For Congressional wives, this is hardly unusual, but, along with the revelation that the couple sometimes vacation separately, the story suggested that Mr. and Mrs. McCain aren't that close and perhaps their marriage is troubled.
The how-low-can-they-sink moment came when it was revealed that one of the reporters who wrote the piece tried to contact a friend of the McCains' 16-year-old daughter, through her FaceBook page, to ask what she knew about Cindy as a mother.
Even Joe The Plumber got the Times once-over with a blowtorch. An October 17 story ("Real Deal on 'Joe the Plumber' Reveals New Slant") sought to debunk the GOP icon.
Joe doesn't have a plumber's license (gasp!), owes back taxes and is a registered Republican, the story disclosed. And his name isn't even Joe, it's Samuel J. Wurzelbacher (who, FYI, owes less than $1,200 in back taxes.) For the Times to attack so minor a figure shows that the Democrats don't have to spin the news; the media do it for them.
All that was missing was an expose of the McCains' dog: He benefited from the financial crisis. He voted with George Bush 96% of the time. His name isn't Fido; it's Floyd, and he isn't even an Irish Setter. He's really a Golden Retriever.
The only time the paper mentioned Obama's friendship with 1960s terrorist William Ayers was to rationalize the relationship or to attack the McCain campaign for raising the issue.
An October 11 story said Ayers "worked with him [Obama] on a school project and a charitable board and gave a house party when Mr. Obama was running for the U.S. Senate." This is like saying that Monica Lewinsky was a White House intern who shared certain interests with then-President Clinton.
The Times didn't think it was relevant to mention that Ayers and his comrades carried out more than 30 bombings, including the Capitol building and the Pentagon; that Ayers's current goal is to "teach against oppression" embodied in "America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation"; that Ayers chose Obama to serve as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - a group they used to fund radical causes like ACORN - and that the duo served together on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, another milch cow for the radical left.
The New York Times used its editorials to blast McCain and Palin for talking about Ayers ("one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember" the paper wailed.) In so doing, the Republican ticket has moved beyond mere "distortions" of Obama's record "into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia," the Times screeched.
Given that Ayers is white and native-born, this isn't an easy case to make. But the Times doesn't have to actually prove a charge, just make it.
* * * * *
A few more things about which The New York Times and the rest of the establishment media displayed a stunning lack of curiosity include:
Why Obama sat in a pew of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ for 19 years listening to his preacher/mentor the Rev. Jeremiah ("God damn America!") Wright spew racism and anti-Americanism.
Obama's relationship with Louis Farrakhan. Wright and Father Michael Pfleger (another friend of Obama) are tight with America's most dangerous demagogue. Obama attended Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, and described it in glowing terms in a community newspaper. Farrakhan practically anointed Obama in a January address to the Nation of Islam.
Obama's connection to the leftist ACORN (voter-fraud-r-us).
Michelle Obama's embrace of "black power" as a student at Princeton.
The details of Barack's acknowledged drug usage - what substances, if any, did he use besides cocaine? When did his addiction end? Was he using drugs as an Illinois state senator? Who was his supplier?
Obama's foray into Kenyan politics in support of an avowed Marxist who ran for president.
Why Mr. Compassion hasn't done anything for his Kenyan half-brother, who's living in poverty, or his best friend from prep school days, who just got out of prison?
Of course, the media's interest in any of the above would presuppose that they actually wanted to report the news, instead of advancing their ideological agenda by pushing the candidate they adore.
One of the defining moments of the 1964 Republican National Convention, which nominated Barry Goldwater at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, was when a speaker mentioned the media and angry delegates turned around and shook their fists at the press box. As the French say, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He maintains his own website, DonFeder.com. This essay originally appeared at GrassTopsUSA.com.
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