Obama: Hysteria And Reality
The Monitor supported John McCain in the presidential campaign just concluded, and given the opportunity would do so again.
Having said that, anyone who wasn't profoundly moved by Barack Obama’s victory rally and speech last week has to be either emotionally dead or devoid of any appreciation of just how historic a moment it was.
Political Bookshelf
Reaction some months back to the Monitor’s Summer Reading List (June 23) was gratifying enough to warrant a list of recommended books for intelligent readers during the coming cold-weather months. The previous list concentrated on books about the Middle East; this one focuses on politics, New York and national.
How To Judge Bush’s Speech
For the best indication that President Bush's June 24 White House speech indeed amounted to what several Israeli officials described as the most pro-Israel statement ever made by a sitting U.S. president, one need look no further than the reactions it stirred in the American punditocracy.
The Moral Clarity Of Fighting Men
In "The Media and the Military," an article in the November issue of The Atlantic - arguably the best serious magazine in America today - Robert Kaplan writes of the great social and cultural divide that exists between the nation's elite journalists and its soldiers.
Cardozo’s Man Of Honor
The Monitor will pay tribute next week to Michael Kelly, the exemplary journalist and true friend of Israel who died so tragically in Iraq. This week, however, we take a look at some choice remarks made over the course of the past 20 years by South African Arch-bishop Desmond Tutu, Kelly's opposite in just about every way imaginable.
Misreading The Road Map
The July 4th holiday having thrown the Monitor off schedule, this week's column is placed in the capable hands of HonestReporting.com.
A Fool In His Own Words
Shimon Peres was in America this week hawking his new biography. Written by veteran Labor-friendly journalist Michael Bar-Zohar, who served as Peres’s campaign chairman during the 1981 Knesset elections, the book (imaginatively titled Shimon Peres: The Biography) strives to present its subject as a sadly misunderstood and underappreciated Israeli hero.
9/11 And The Left
This week marks the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America by Islamic fundamentalists. What really stands out in looking back at that day and its aftermath are the initial reactions voiced by many highly visible liberals and leftists, both in the U.S. and abroad.
The Times’s Strange Potshot
It’s not exactly news that The New York Times editorial page detested Ronald Reagan. But who would have thought that seventeen years after the end of his presidency and nearly two years after his death the Times would still seek to denigrate Reagan’s legacy, on its news pages, in a manner that can only be described as petty and inappropriate?
Notes On A Pair Of Pinheads
Would it be a tad tasteless for the Monitor to break into a hearty chorus of 'Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead' at the welcome news that Deborah Sontag is soon to vacate her post as New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief?
Blaming Israel For Istanbul
A disturbing media trend blames Israeli policy for the Islamist war on Western civilization. The recent coordinated bombings against British targets in Istanbul, occurring just days after the dual bombings of Istanbul synagogues, make the Islamic terrorist message brutally clear: their targets are the Jewish people and Western democratic civilization.
Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out, Dan
Dan Rather signed off permanently this week as CBS Evening News anchor and the Monitor thought it only appropriate to review some of the more outlandishly biased statements he tried to pass off over the years as objective news. Media watchdog websites such as MediaResearchCenter.com and RatherBiased.com are repositories for dozens of Rather's most revealing quotes. These are the Monitor's personal favorites:
Web Favorites
This week's Monitor, as promised, features a listing of websites and blogs worth visiting, at least in our estimation and the estimation of our readers. Unlike our previous listing of favorite websites last September, we make no attempt here to rank the sites in order of popularity.
Media Double Standards
Reminders of the mainstream media’s egregious political double standard vis-à-vis liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, come on an almost daily basis – the latest being last week’s New York magazine, the cover of which features a head shot of John McCain smack in the middle of a concentric-ringed bulls-eye board accompanied by this charming teaser copy: “Target: Bush-Backing, Surge-Loving, Economically Clueless Geezer.”
Newsmen, Comedian, Or Both?
Take your pick, because your guess is as good as the Monitor's: The Pooh-Bahs at CBS News are either (a) completely clueless or (b) utterly disinclined to dispel the widespread perception that the network, particularly its news operation, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.
Buckley And The Jews
(This week’s column is a somewhat expanded version of a post by your trusty correspondent at Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog.)
Among his many other accomplishments,...
No Doubting Thomas On Israel
As an evangelical Christian, Cal Thomas – author, syndicated columnist, television talking head – brings to his work a deep religious commitment combined with a sophisticated media sensibility. His worldview is governed by biblical absolutes, among them the unshakable conviction that the Jews have a divine right to the Land of Israel.
Edward Klein On Obama And Wright
Wright, Klein writes, “became far more than a religious and spiritual guide to Obama; he was his substitute father, life coach, and political inspiration wrapped in one package. At each step of Obama’s career, Wright was there with practical advice and counsel…. It would be no exaggeration to say that Jeremiah Wright…prepared him to run for president.”
Bush, Jews And Democrats (Part XI)
There is every reason to believe that had Bill Clinton been on the ballot in the 2000 presidential election, American Jews would have voted in overwhelming numbers to return him to office for a third term.
Lieberman Gave A Thousand Dollars To Whom?
When five-term Alabama congressman Earl Hilliard, widely considered one of Israel's most implacable foes on Capitol Hill, was defeated in a Democratic primary last June, the news was greeted with unconcealed glee by pro-Israel organizations and activists across the country - many of whom had worked hard to unseat him.
Democrat Echo Chamber
One of the websites listed here last week as a Monitor favorite did a sterling job Sunday exposing The New York Times as a journalistic copy machine of Democratic Party talking points.
Pat Buchanan Democrats
Pat Buchanan was on "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, but more noteworthy than Buchanan's predictable anti-Israel fulminations was the tacit agreement with Buchanan voiced by Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who sought his party's presidential nomination early in the 2004 campaign cycle.
First To Worst
The Monitor tries to warm the winter cold with one baseball-related column a year, and what better time than now, with the Super Bowl over and pitchers and catchers set to report to spring training camps next week?
The Schwarzschild Award
The winner of the Monitor’s third annual Henry Schwarzschild Award for most offensive comments by a Jew in the public spotlight goes to Michael Lerner, publisher of the far-left Tikkun magazine.
A Question For The Ages
In this week's Jewish Press front-page essay, Uri Kaufman takes a look at the seemingly unbreakable bond between American Jewry and the Democratic Party. It's something that's been pondered, discussed, debated, and written about for decades, and still the question remains: Why are Jews wedded to the Democrats, years after it stopped making any economic or political sense for them to remain in the marriage?
The Real Deal
The anticipated or imminent arrival to the major leagues of a Jewish ballplayer is such a relatively infrequent phenomenon that it usually has Jewish fans buzzing - often for the two or three (or more) years it takes for a particular Jewish player to work his way up through the minor leagues.
The Ever Reliable Jewish Voter
Roughly 30 percent of those Jews who had voted for Reagan in 1980 went for Mondale in 1984.
Hollywood’s Anti-Terror Ad
Unless you know your way around the blogosphere or get your news from publications like the Malaysia Sun, Australia’s Sunday Morning Herald or Germany’s Die Welt, you likely missed the story last week that some 84 Hollywood celebrities – actors, directors and producers – had signed an ad condemning Hizbullah and Hamas that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
Talking Back To The Times
Sam Ehrenhalt, whose op-ed articles and letters to the editor always enhance The Jewish Press, has shared with the Monitor a thoughtful note he recently dispatched to New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.
Sharansky: Reagan Right, Critics Wrong
Ronald Reagan, who would have been 100 this past Sunday, had an instinctive affinity for Jews and Israel. As an actor who spent decades in the heavily Jewish environment of Hollywood and who counted scores of Jews among his friends and colleagues, he moved easily in pro-Israel circles. Both as a private citizen and as governor of California he was a familiar sight and a favored speaker at various functions for Israel.