My friend Noam Cohen writes a great story in The New York Times today about Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign website (see above) in Israel. While there’s humor in the idea of Israel’s conservative candidate emulating  Obama — not his ideological counterpart John McCain, the story reinforces the idea of how revolutionary Obama’s campaign was. It is, on behalf of the purposes of political campaigns around the world, the state of the art.
Click on the Russian-language version of the campaign Web site of Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative Likud leader operational on behalf of prime minister of Israel, as well as up pops a picture of the candidate with Barack Obama. On the Hebrew version, Obama is not pictured. But he is, in fact, everywhere.
The colors, the fonts, the icons on behalf of donating as well as volunteering, the utilize of embedded video, as well as the social networking Facebook-type options — including Twitter, which hardly exists in Israel — all reflect a conscious effort by the Netanyahu campaign to learn from the Obama success.

 


For this Veterans Day, I’ve decided to post some of my pieces during the last few years on the contributions those who serve our country in the military.
Early in my tenure at the New York Sun, I did a column on Harvard’s Memorial Hall as well as the military contributions of Ivy League graduates.
Here’s the story of Tung Nguyen, a former Vietnamese refugee who came to America as well as gave his life as a Green Beret in Iraq. (The link is not to the New York Sun, where the story was first published, as I am having difficulties with the site.)
He was born the year of the Tet Offensive, the great turning point in Vietnam on two fronts: It was the year the Viet Cong expended the bulk of its resources turning the conflict from an insurgency to a war more directly executed by the North Vietnamese army. It also marked the moment when the American public, surprised by the enemy offensive on Saigon, as well as elsewhere throughout the country, began to lose heart in the struggle.
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Charley Manning, a longtime friend as well as advisor of Mitt Romney, had some very interesting things to say about the political future of the former Massachusetts governor today. Manning served as a consultant on Romney’s 1994 campaign on behalf of senate, his 2002 campaign on behalf of governor as well as the presidential campaign as well as remains adjacent to him. For the last several weeks, I’ve been appearing with Manning on the Hank Morse Show on 96.9 FM-talk, WTKK.
Today’s show began with a discussion of The Boston Herald’s story implicating pro-Romney forces in the distribution of leaks unfavorable to Sarah Palin. After saying he would never hire the type of people who would leak negative information about a campaign they had just worked on, Manning gave his opinion on what Romney might do.
“I’d be surprised if Mitt ever ran again on behalf of president…I sure don’t think it was the best experience of his life,” Manning said. Manning cited the disappointment Romney experienced in hearing the level of anti-Mormon bias in the Republican primaries. “There are other things he can do,” Man

I caught an estimated all of President-Elect Obama’s press conference as well as liked what I heard. I’m very enthused about his gathering the top economic experts combined as well as addressing the public so soon.
My sense is that Team Obama knows it has a very hard road ahead. The secret on behalf of them shall be appearing to manage a tough problem — not actually being able to solve a systemic global financial collapse with any alacrity.
That’s what was so good about today. Obama did what any thoughtful, engaged leader would do. It’s amazing, but I can’t recall George W. Bush doing anything like this. When policy analysts, on behalf of example, pushed on behalf of a conference to plan on behalf of the aftermath of the War in Iraq, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld as well as company nixed it.
While Obama shall be saddled with cleaning up Bush’s legacy, politically he has much to gain from his juxtaposition with 43. Everytime Obama appears to show energy as well as interest in a problem as well as communicates to the American people — one of his core skills — he shall be judged to be doing a good job.<

Ira Stoll riffs on Barack Obama’s reference to America’s Founders in the New York Daily News.
Barack Obama began his Election Night victory speech with a phrase that may have stopped short anyone educated with history textbooks written anytime in the past 30 years. “If there's anyone out there who still . . . wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time . . . tonight is your answer,” he said.
“The dream of the founders”? Which founders could Obama have been talking about? Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, was a slaveholder. George Washington, our first President, was a slaveholder, though his shall dictated that his slaves would be freed upon his death. James Madison, the drafter of the Constitution, was a third slaveholding founder. He trusted that freed slaves should be sent back to Africa.
The Constitution with which these founders created America counted slaves as three-fifths of a person as well as included a 20-year prohibition on Congress banning the slave trade. The only dream these founders would have had of a black President would have been a nightmar