THE FOUNDATION

“I cannot conceive a rank more honorable, than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power.” –George Washington

INSIGHT

“We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people – the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.” –Herman Melville

“The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.” –William McKinley

“Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.” –Spinoza

“It’s not victory if it doesn’t end the war.” –Michel de Montaigne

“Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.” –Niccolo Machiavelli

“It is impossible to attain proper physical condition without being sound both mentally and morally.” –John Wooden

“It was not for societies or states, that Christ died, but for men.” –C.S. Lewis

“It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.” –Calvin Coolidge

“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.” –William O. Douglas

“The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.” –John Marshall

“Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” –Henry Clay

“Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.” –George Bancroft

“The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.” –Henry Ward Beecher

“People only leave (Washington) by way of the box – ballot or coffin.” –Claiborne Pell

“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” –Will Rogers

UPRIGHT

“Euphemism is the first refuge of the diplomat.” –Paul Greenberg

“The Palestinian strategy will continue to work until the Western governments, and this means mostly the United States, back away and allow Israel to teach the terrorists, and those who harbor terrorists, that acts have consequences, and mortal acts have mortal consequences.” –Wesley Pruden

“We are witnessing the end of what has been known for centuries as the Holy Land.” –Armstrong Williams

“Terror exists everywhere in the world, but this [the Middle East] is the only place where it has its own authority. The terror infrastructure must be destroyed sooner or later, and we cannot avoid the problem much longer.” –Natan Sharansky

“The purpose of U.S. foreign policy is protecting the security of Americans, not crusading for goodness abroad.” –Don Feder

“The war on terrorism is proving by the day, it seems, a larger and larger test of American resolve.” –Terry Eastland

“Israel’s war against terrorism, both morally and strategically, is no different than ours.” –Rush Limbaugh

“The fight against evil is not a sprint or even a middle-distance event. It is truly a marathon. If we wish to be marathoners, we will need all the courage, endurance and stamina we can muster.” –David C. Stolinsky

“Which part of no doesn’t Congress understand? The First Amendment says: ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people to peaceably assemble.’ I don’t see any exceptions there, do you?” –Mark Tapscott

“Everyone’s right to freedom of conscience is not self-executing. We have to be careful to give everyone a hearing.” –Nat Hentoff

“An age of individualism is perpetually tempted to arrogance – to rejection of Old Dead Guys, like the framers of the Constitution or the compilers of the Torah, who might way back then have had some understanding, and maybe more than that, of the Truth.” –Bill Murchison

“Even American actors should take responsibility for their high profile to the extent that others are likely to think they represent us all. If they insist on giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies they must be prepared to take the consequences.” –Paul M. Rodriguez

“Once upon a time, Hollywood put stock in another commodity – taste.” –Brent Bozell

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Yasser Arafat’s escalating terrorist campaign against cafes, discotheques, Passover seders and pizzerias, and the tough Israeli military response it has provoked, has left President Bush with a critical choice. He can either get off the fence and stand unmistakably with Israel, or he can continue trying to distance the United States from Israel’s struggle with terror in the hope that Saudi Arabia and other U.S. ‘friends’ in the Arab world will refrain from sabotaging a military operation against Iraq. Clearly, the policy pursued by the administration until now has been a failure. Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. special negotiator Anthony Zinni were unable to persuade Mr. Arafat to agree to a cease-fire, which would have required him to call off the suicide bombers. …For his part, Mr. Arafat hasn’t gotten the message. Instead of condemning suicide attacks, the Palestinian boss has said that he would rather become a ‘martyr’ than surrender fugitive terrorist suspects hiding in his Ramallah headquarters to the Israeli army. …Now is not the time to reward Mr. Arafat for supporting terrorism. Now is the time to stand with a fellow democracy, Israel, as it confronts its local bin Laden.” –Washington Times

DEZINFORMATSIA

This week’s “Moral Innumeracy” Awards (A Trifecta): “Arafat, accustomed to close brushes with death during his long career as a guerrilla leader and statesman, remained defiant and in high spirits.”–Reuters report following last week’s dual suicide bombings. **“Guerrilla leader and statesman”? Huh?

“It’s really quite unusual to speak to our next guest. His organization, Hamas, takes credit for the killing in Netanya. He told CNN shortly after the attack just that, and even defended it promising more to come. He’s the spokesperson for an organization seen by most as a terrorist group, even though he would probably prefer the term freedom fighter. We’re joined by Hamas spokesman Usama Hamdan. Thank you so much for being with us, sir.” –Connie Chung with a Hamas “freedom fighter”

“These suicide bombers are attracted to crowds.” –Fox News reporter Todd Connor

This week’s “Hyper-Hypocrisy” Award: “On average, only 24 percent of Muslims polled in each of the countries had a favorable opinion of the U.S. More disturbing, only an average of 23 percent in six of the countries believe news reports that Arabs carried out the September 11th attacks. As for the U.S. response to September 11th, 76 percent of those polled [by Gallup], on average, say the American mission in Afghanistan is not morally justified. President Bush acknowledged today that the U.S. faces a major long-term problem…. But many Arab-Americans say it’s not just perceptions at issue but U.S. policies, especially in the Middle East…. Other analysts say Mr. Bush’s bellicose language may be exacerbating the problem.” –ABC’s Terry Moran, who further failed to cite any analysts who disagreed with the premise that U.S. policies are at fault and that we brought the 9-11 attacks on ourselves.

From the “Race Card Poker” Files: “Many of those already questioned say it was terrifying that they were, in their words, ‘victims of ethnic profiling’.” –Peter Jennings on suspected Jihadi terrorists or their suspected supporters.

From the “Garbage In – Garbage Out” Department: “Tom, not long ago, we were practically declaring victory. How did we suddenly end up with troops on the ground, and are we stuck there? Is this, dare I mention, Vietnam?” –New York Times reporter Rick Berke’s question to NPR’s Tom Gjelton on PBS’s Washington Week.

This week’s “Geraldo-Springer Journalism” Award: “She went off the air looking great. She came on the air looking like a 25-year-old cheerleader.” –CNN’s Aaron Brown on his former colleague, now with Fox News, Greta Van Susteren

SOCIOCRATS

From the Clinton “Cunning Linguistics” Files: “It [the last-minute presidential pardon of Marc Rich] was terrible politics. It wasn’t worth the damage to my reputation. But that doesn’t mean the attacks were true.” –Former President Bill Clinton, now venturing the radical assertions that he had a reputation capable of being damaged, and that the words “is” and “true” might have stable meanings.

More from the “Clinton Presidue” Files: “…[I was] just angry that after I worked so hard, and after all that money had been spent proving that I never did anything wrong for money that I’d get mugged one more time on the way out the door. …I was tickled that [Troopergate reporter David] Brock said that they always knew there was nothing to the Paula Jones case and I won that. …The judge ruled in my favor.” –Our former national embarrassment again, in taped but unprinted comments to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter **Funny, but we thought being impeached regarding the case, then settling the Paula Jones matter for $850,000 meant there was “something” to it!

And a Democrisy coda: “It ends as it began: with no evidence of any wrongdoing.” –David Kendall, Clinton Whitewater attorney

From the “Hispandering” Files: “Republicans are desperately – but unsuccessfully – seeking Hispanic support. The president’s trip…to Latin America is part of an orchestrated strategy to curry favor with Latino voters in the United States.” –Former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, who also criticized Mr. Bush for his “vague assurances on the issue of immigration” and for not signing on with the Democrites’ upped ante to “allow hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding immigrants to emerge from society’s shadows and enter the American mainstream.” **How can illegal immigrants also be “law-abiding immigrants”?

VILLAGE IDIOTS

From the “Keen Sense of the Obvious” Department: “All it [a negotiated cease-fire] does is stop the violence. It doesn’t do anything about our interest in addressing the root cause.” –Unnamed senior Palestinian “negotiator” perhaps unintentionally giving the Palestinian terrorists’ game away.

This week’s “Periplaneta Americana” Award: “Whenever someone asks me if it’s safe over there for tourists, I always say yes. I would think twice about going on a trip to Miami or New York, where you can’t walk the streets. Give me the Middle East any day.” –James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute

From the Files of the Morally Challenged: “Sex is a wonderful, crucial part of growing up, and children and teens can enjoy the pleasures of the body and be safe, too.” –University of Minnesota Press promotional statement for Judith Levine’s new book, “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex,” which Levine says is dedicated to debunking “the ideology that it’s always harmful for kids to have sexual relationships with adults,” together with the “irrational fears” parents have about “so-called pedophiles.”

This week’s “Village Ignorati” Award: “Were we too closed in our own self-absorption and self-interest? Not open or interested in others – other cultures, other views, other voices? We seemed closed in our own success and greed.” –Robert Redford on the reasons for the 9-11 attack

This week’s “Village Glitterati” Award: “You can do much better than me.” –Woody Allen (AKA Mr.-Boycott-the-Oscars) at the Oscars **Finally, the truth from a Hollywood weirdo…. Too bad he didn’t really mean it!

From the “Village Academic Curriculum” Files: The Collegiate Network announced winners of the annual “Polly Awards” for political correctness in our nation’s bastions of knowledge. UC Berkeley’s sex education class brought home the prize for an orgy at a class party, and a field trip to a strip club where the students watched an instructor have sex on stage – no doubt very instructive. UNC’s Progressive Faculty Network won big with the award for “anti-American events” for the statement: “Understanding the attacks on the United States must include an understanding of different kinds of attacks – attacks not only by unknown or suspected terrorists, but attacks by us on ourselves…. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence.” And a final Left Coastin’ Lemmings Award went to the “just administrators” at San Diego State University, who placed Ethiopian student Zewdalem Kebede on probation for “verbal abuse” after he confronted Saudi students who (in Arabic) cheered the 9-11 Jihadi attacks on our nation and “expressed sorrow that the terrorists missed the White House.”

SHORT CUTS

“It’s no great trick negotiating a cease-fire in the Middle East; there have been any number of them. It’s like the fellow who said it was easy to quit smoking; he’d done it lots of times.” –Paul Greenberg

“I don’t think we should be sending diplomats to the Middle East. I think we should be sending teams of psychiatrists.” –John Derbyshire

“The transportation secretary, Underperformin’ Norman Mineta, is continuing his harassment of octogenarian nuns at airport check-ins. The newly federalized security scanners fall asleep on the job as often as the minimum-wage, illegal-immigrant, no-speakka-da-English, wanted-in-three-neighboring-states, old-school security scanners.” –Mark Steyn

“The INS is the Mickey Mouse Club of federal agencies, but that’s an insult to Mickey Mouse.” –Rep. Tom Tancredo

“…[T]he networks’ Clinton rewrite specialists can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube. The Clinton presidency can’t be compared to a bad season of ‘Dallas,’ where the angelic Bill Clinton pops out of the shower and we all realize it was all just a bad dream. Clinton earned his bad reputation….” –Brent Bozell

“Clinton rues the day he pardoned Marc Rich? That’s BS, too. That is bovine excrement. The only difference between that and a bag of horse manure is the bag.” –Rush Limbaugh

“The Whitewater scandal cost the taxpayers $73 million and you needed an MBA to understand it. The Lewinsky scandal cost about the same, but only required the intelligence of your average voyeur.” –Mark Russell

“The Book of Phrases: Representative government – where many crooks get to vote one crook into office.” –Johnny Hart in the comic strip “B.C.”

“The price of the poetry and logic books just went up for no rhyme or reason.” –Bob Thaves in the comic strip “Frank & Ernest”

Jay Leno…. I had a nice Easter, but these Beverly Hills kids are spoiled. Yesterday I saw some kids using the On Star Global Positioning System to locate eggs. …. That’s the big movie right now, ‘Panic Room’ with Jodie Foster. Panic room – that’s sort of like Yasser Arafat’s office. …. The American Taliban Johnny Walker testified in court…. He complained that when he was captured he was confined to a room that was too small, had no heat and had only one light bulb. Oh please, shut up! To every other American 20-year-old that’s called a dorm room! …. Right now in Afghanistan music is making a comeback. For so long it was banned, but now musicians are safe to play there again. Do you know what the big hit there is right now – disco! Serious, disco music is the big thing in Afghanistan now. So we’ve brought them out of the 13th century, but only up to 1978. …. More bad news for airports – 32 airports were tested for security and failed because they missed screening things like knives. Looks like it’s safe to fly again – if you’re a terrorist! …. Playboy magazine is going to do an edition featuring the women of Enron. I guess the only thing for some of these women left to shred is their dignity. …. The ratings for the Oscars are in. It was the lowest ratings for the Oscars ever! The first seven hours were good. It was somewhere between the 10th and 12th hours that people lost interest.

David Letterman…. Top April Fool’s Pranks in Afghanistan: Short-sheeted burqas; A fake beard over your real beard; Saying you’re wife #4, when you’re really wife #2; Offering someone a can of peanut brittle and a goat jumps out; Painting giant bull’s-eye on roof of friend’s cave; Rocket launchers that shoot out little flag that reads “Bang”; Replacing secret stockpiles of weaponized Anthrax with Folger’s Crystals; Writing “Wash me” on Osama’s camel; Saying you support the Hamid Karzai government, but secretly supporting a warlord who has secretly begun to support the Taliban again, but then betraying the warlord, but then betraying the Karzai government and really supporting the warlord again; Writing “Wash me” on Osama.

Argus Hamilton…. Boston’s Logan Airport had to be evacuated Tuesday after a janitor mistakenly unplugged a metal detector. This was an accident waiting to happen. There just aren’t enough outlets for the metal detector, the boom box and the vacuum cleaner. …. Pentagon sources revealed Sunday that U.S. forces in Afghanistan have captured al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. He’s quite a trophy. Although there was no dollar amount reward on the head of Abu Zubaydah, his name is worth a million points in Scrabble. …. Bill Clinton told Newsweek that he’s still angry over all the criticism that was heaped on him at the end of his term. He said he was mugged on the way out of office. Only Bill Clinton could take the furniture, the paintings, and a $12 million book deal and think he was robbed. …. Yasser Arafat was holed up in his residential compound by Israeli tanks and machine gunners Monday. He’s completely surrounded. There is one way out, but right now he’s not thinking clearly enough to go shopping for office space in Harlem. …. The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston aired on ABC’s Sunday Night Movie over the weekend. It shows how the Israelites escaped from Egypt and headed for Palestine. When God gives Yasser Arafat a bad week, it lasts the entire seven days. …. Jesse Jackson volunteered to fly to the Middle East and negotiate peace with America’s enemies in the region. His offer to go there was quickly turned down by the administration. Apparently we’re not THAT mad at the terrorists. …. The Academy Awards may ask Johnny Carson to host the show next year. This is a risky idea. If you think Whoopi Goldberg ran too long, don’t even ask what time it would be by the time Johnny Carson got finished telling eight years of pent-up Clinton jokes.