Obama at his worst - and his best

On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama's speech on race in America tried to quell the controversy over his America-bashing, race-baiting, Israel-hating pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For days, video clips of Wright spewing his poison threatened to neutralize Obama's populist magic. Until Tuesday, the controversy showed Obama at his worst. His response to his pastor's demagoguery was mealy-mouthed and disingenuous. It was impossible to believe Obama's Clintonesque claim of ignorance, that he never "sat in the pews" during one of Wright's wrongheaded riffs. And Obama's failure over a twenty-year relationship to criticize his mentor's venom stirred doubts about Obama's judgment, patriotism, and commitment to the unity he celebrates. Yet once again, Illinois' rookie Senator hit a grand slam with two strikes against him. Obama's speech was thoughtful, thought-provoking, rich, complex, effective, poetic, and inspiring.

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This family's answer to the menace of terrorism

Last week was what I am starting to think about as a typically strange week in Israel. Even before the horrific attack on Mercaz Harav here in Jerusalem we were living what I think of as the great Israeli disconnect.

On the one hand, our major focus was on sticking to the shigra, a new word I learned this year - the routine. My wife and I spent much of the week juggling. On Thursday for example, we worked on helping our 10-year-old son with his shishim shana Israel-at-60 school project, getting our seven-year-old son to the stress test he had to take to play in his baseball little league, dropping our five-year-old daughter off at her swimming lesson, and preparing our 12-year-old daughter for her youth movement tiyul - trip.

On the streets of Jerusalem the big headline was that the winter had lifted, spring was in the air. The meteorologists actually warned of sharav, a hot and dry spell, as our friends in Montreal struggled with another storm - this time 18 centimeters of snow mixed with 5 centimeters of ice pellets.

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Want the best president for Israel?

'Super-Duper" Tuesday is looming February 5. Americans will vote in 22 states, including New York, New Jersey and California, all with major Jewish populations. As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fight fiercely for the Democratic nomination, many pro-Israel voters are asking, "who is best for Israel"?

Truth is, despite the murmurings about the "Jewish vote" and the "Israel lobby," few American Jews today are such narrow one-issue voters. Amid American Jews' lamentable but growing disinterest in Israel, most American Jews are more multi-dimensional, and frankly, more passionate about other stances such as being pro-choice and anti-Bush. With American support for Israel so widespread and "apple pie," most mainstream candidates make enough pro-Israel noises to satisfy the casually pro-Israel American Jew.

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Making elections real events not 'pseudo events'

Perhaps the best thing that happened in the marginal, unrepresentative Iowa caucuses was that Senator Barack Obama defied all that media speculation about Senator Hillary Clinton's "inevitability." Perhaps the best thing that happened in the marginal, unrepresentative New Hampshire primary  was that Senator Hillary Clinton disproved all that media speculation about Senator Barack Obama's momentum. The results for Republicans were similarly surprising, with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee supposedly coming from "nowhere" to win in Iowa, and Senator John McCain "coming back" to win after pundits pronounced his candidacy dead. The 350,000 citizens who caucused in Iowa and the half a million or so New Hampshirites who voted in their state's Democratic and Republican primaries reminded the pundits that even in modern America's "mediaocracy," the power remains with the people.

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