When Megyn Kelly asked Jeb Bush if he would, knowing what we know now, have invaded Iraq in 2003, it was not a gotcha question. She is not a liberal shill looking to eviscerate every GOP presidential candidate. She was actually giving him the opportunity to separate himself from his big brother, even though big brother George had already said that absent faulty intelligence, he would not have gone after Saddam Hussein.

Jeb’s problem was that, like most politicians, he prefers the sound of his own voice to that of all others. He was so anxious to give his canned answer that he tuned out the all-important “Knowing what we know now.” The fact is we have all misheard and misspoken on occasion. The problem is that he didn’t immediately say, “Oh, sorry, Megyn, I was preoccupied, worrying about my father’s failing health” or something equally self-serving. Instead, he and his people wasted a few days trying to make sense of his response.

In other words, like every other political hack, he relies on his staff to translate what he says into coherent speech. Frankly, I am sick of political handlers and spin-masters speaking on behalf of the political lamebrains. As I said, we have all committed verbal transgressions, but we didn’t job it out to twenty other people to explain what we meant to say. We did it ourselves.

The more these buffoons rely on others to smooth over their gaffes, the less respect I have for them. And in some cases, you’d think that would be virtually impossible.

Liberals are always accusing those of us on the Right, and I might add “in the right,” of confusing societal issues with political matters. They’re the ones who push for same-sex marriages; for abortions on demand, even for teenagers, even into the 35th week; and for an abandonment of drug enforcement laws; and then when conservatives push back, they cry “Foul!” Worse yet, they accuse us of bringing religion into politics, and even lambaste clerics for speaking out on moral issues.

Political life is often determined by unpredictable events beyond our control. After all, in January, 2001, when he was sworn in, George Bush had no idea that within eight months, an Islamic sneak attack on New York’s Twin Towers would toss his political agenda out the window.

On the other hand, when it comes to public policy dealing with moral issues, those are eternal matters, involving our values and our religious freedom.

Speaking of liberals, they are constantly telling us that they’re the ones providing safety nets for the neediest and most vulnerable Americans; what they neglect to mention, however, is that it’s their economic programs and regulations that necessitate all those damn nets in the first place.

But it’s not fair to simply blame the Democrats. After all, after 50 years, if 95% of blacks continue to vote for the presidents, senators, congressmen and mayors, who have profited from their dependency, you can’t argue that they’re blameless. And when Al Sharpton continues to show up at the riots and to further inflame the mob, and not once get tarred-and-feathered or ridden out of town on a rail, it becomes increasingly difficult to give the black masses a pass.

In the bad old days, when generals were given to ordering their troops into suicidal missions (“Into the Valley of Death rode the 600”), soldiers were referred to as cannon fodder. It meant that their lives were inconsequential; that the only point of their needless deaths was to somehow reflect gloriously on the be-medaled frauds who watched them die from atop hills far from the bloodletting.

Today, the Democrats might as well refer to their black constituents as ballot fodder.

The latest sign of the times is that in Oakland, CA, because so many black students are being suspended from school for cussing, mouthing off to teachers, fighting and unexcused absences from class, the city and school administrators have decided that the solution is to suspend suspensions. They will also end expulsions and transfers to other schools for multiple infractions.

As I see it, they’re merely picking up on my suggestion to reduce crime in the inner-city by decriminalizing theft, rape and murder. So perhaps I’m partly to blame. It just never occurred to me that when I make jokes, Democrats would take them seriously.

But it’s not just vote-trolling liberals who pamper and coddle the thugs. I mean, when the nuts from the Westboro Baptist Church disrupt military funerals, the media readily acknowledges that they’re a bunch of inbred misfits. However, when urban blacks chant: “What do we want? Dead cops!” we see elected officials defend them, and from the collective media we hear nary a word of moral condemnation.

Another bone I’d like to pick with Democrats involves their parroting the demand that everyone pay his fair share of taxes. For one thing, there’s no such thing, especially when tens of millions of Americans not only don’t pay taxes, but receive some of the money the rest of us have to fork over. Besides, the federal government is no better than a drunken spendthrift, and could make out very nicely with half of what it receives if it didn’t waste so much of the dough we’re compelled to send to the IRS.

But as if all that’s not bad enough, some of the loudest voices we hear calling for higher and higher taxes belong to such tax scofflaws as Charley Rangel, Warren Buffet, Al Sharpton and Timothy Geithner, liberals all.

For a change, I would like to hear angry voices raised in Washington, D.C., as well as in our various state legislatures, about all those welfare junkies who don’t do their fair share of work. Or any work, come to think of it.

Recently, as a great many people know, my computer was hacked and, as a result, they all received news about some product or service that had allegedly been mentioned by Oprah Winfrey. Of course they weren’t fooled. For one thing, the email address wasn’t mine. For another, I recall quite clearly how hard she sold Barack Obama in 2008, so I would never take her word about anything.

But when one of the email recipients wrote to me, just to make certain I hadn’t sent it, I assured him he could rest easy. I went on to say that I would make all crimes that people commit for no other reason than to annoy other people, capital offenses. Why not? There are over seven billion of us, so we can easily afford to start thinning the herd of troublemakers. It would not only make life far more pleasant for the rest of us, but it would open up a lot of additional parking spaces and speed up the lines at the supermarket.