Columnist.
As a rule, the guy running for president chooses a running mate he thinks will help him win a specific swing state, which explains Kennedy picking Johnson. Sometimes he picks someone whom, he hopes, will energize the electorate, which explains McCain picking Palin. But, nearly always, he selects a person nobody really wants to see wind up as president. After all, when some guy is just a heartbeat from the Oval Office, you don't want to have millions of people hoping you have a heart attack. And that explains why such nonentities as Spiro Agnew, Dan Quayle, Al Gore and Joe Biden, have all held the office. It also helps if your laddy-in-waiting is the sort of goof who refers to putting out the hit order on Osama bin Laden as the height of courage and audacity. If butt-kissing were an Olympic event, that's the sort of thing that could earn Joe Biden a gold medal in London this summer.
Back in 1992, a 28-year-old black hip-hop singer/writer who called herself Sister Souljah garnered a great deal of publicity when she said, "Black people kill Black people every day; why not have a week and kill white people?" Bill Clinton, who was then running for president, did himself a world of good when he repudiated her statement and, by extension, Jesse Jackson, for including her in his Rainbow Coalition. It was that easy for Clinton to reassure white voters by distancing himself from a pair of black racists, even though he would quickly resume his symbiotic relationship with Jackson once he was safely ensconced in the White House.
I admit that I have a lower tolerance than most for those things that so many other, more patient people, dismiss as petty annoyances. What I can't figure out is why they aren't more like me. For instance, why is it that so many people continue to accept that Barack Obama is brilliant and a spellbinding orator? How is it that anyone, even people so dumb they intend to vote for him, can bear to sit through one of his boring, self-aggrandizing, speeches? Even Jimmy Stewart, at his folksiest, didn't pause three or four times during a single sentence. And talk about dumb, this is the schnook who referred to 57 states and the Austrian language, mispronounced "corps" as "corpse," and, lest there be any question about the state of his brain, recently announced that the private sector economy is doing just fine.
I'm not saying that all liberals are funny. For instance, I don't think Bill Maher, Jon Stewart or David Letterman, is the least bit amusing. Those on the Left only tickle my funny bone when they're not trying for laughs. For instance, when Harvard professor/U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren claims that she is one-thirty-second Cherokee, I can't help chuckling. Here is a woman who was hired by Harvard because they believed her when she claimed to be a "woman of color" even though she's as pale as milk. Naturally, she insists that she didn't claim to be Cherokee in order to further her career, but because she wanted her proud Native American heritage to be known far and wide, so that other members of the tribe would reach out to her. Right. Nothing those Harvard profs enjoy more than having heap big powwows.
The sad truth of the matter is that, when compared to other liberal politicians, Jerry Brown is probably one of the brighter ones. For instance, have you ever heard Sen. Barbara Boxer give a speech or try to answer a simple question? I've never even voted for the woman, but it's downright embarrassing just living in the state that has elected her on four separate occasions. The fact that it is the same state that keeps electing Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Barbara Lee, to the House might help explain why some people, including friends, call me "Grumpy."
If you have decided along the way that I despise liberals, it merely proves that you've been paying attention. I don't just think they're misguided or that they have a different take on the issues than I have, I believe they are evil. I believe that if they had their way, America would be a third world nation. I think they lie, partly out of habit and partly because they know that the equally evil media will aid and abet them by providing cover and by churning out propaganda. For instance, when some flabby-brained weasel like Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi, claims that Republicans don't care about the plight of old people and would love to just push them off the edges of cliffs, the way they illustrated conservative objections to ObamaCare in their TV ads, does anyone take them seriously? Even their fellow left-wingers must know better, but they belong to a cult that demands total fealty. Catholics will doubt the Pope's infallibility sooner than liberals will doubt Obama's. On the Left, you either fall into line or you stand condemned for heresy.
Being as old as I am, I am not the least bit embarrassed by the fact that I am not only unaware of the movies, TV shows and music, that are currently popular, but, aside from a few people named Bieber, Snooki and Kardashian, who somehow snuck through my defenses, I am proud to say I don't know the names of the current idols. One thing that I have become aware of is that the female icons of today are not as attractive as they used to be, and I don't attribute that to my age, but to their lack of faces and figures. For instance, Angelina Jolie has the pencil legs of a 90-year-old and lips that are larger than her arms; Lady Gaga looks like something the cat dragged in; and Sarah Jessica Parker looks like the homely girl that pretty girls hung out with in high school so they'd look even prettier by comparison. When you compare them to the likes of Rhonda Fleming, Rita Hayworth and Doris Day, you'd think you were comparing different species from different planets.
As I'm sure you all know by now, Obama has suggested that for the next few months, nobody should send anyone a wedding, anniversary, birthday or bar mitzvah gift, and should, instead, send the money to him.
As you may have noticed, France elected a new president named Francois Hollande. I'm delighted. It's rare that a country and its president so richly deserve one another. France, after all, is a nation that sat by while its Muslim population set its cities afire because sharia law wasn't yet on the books. Then, more recently, they had riots because their former president proposed that in order to save the economy, retirement age would have to be raised from 60 to 62. The fact that they might have to work an additional two years 40 years down the road was more than enough to send outraged 20-year-old Frenchies into the streets. Keep in mind that they are already guaranteed two months of paid vacation every year. That means that over the course of four decades, that's 80 months or nearly seven years they're not punching a clock. So, in reality, it's more like lifting the retirement age from 53 to 55. But not to worry! Monsieur Hollande, a socialist who looks like a crooked accountant, has promised that France will not have to deal with such brutal austerity measures; which, translated from the French, apparently means working.
I have heard that the creature most likely to survive nuclear wars, a new ice age or even, God forbid, a world dominated by Muslims, is the lowly cockroach. If that's true, I think the cockroach's human equivalent, the lowly liberal can draw some comfort from that fact. Those of you who think I am being unfair to socialists, communists, progressives or whatever else leftists are calling themselves this week, will have to point out where I'm going wrong. After all, like cockroaches, liberals spread disease, believe they're entitled to food and shelter that they've neither produced nor paid for and, rather than try to debate issues, prefer, when confronted, to scurry off and hide in dark and scary places, such as MSNBC, faculty lounges and the editorial offices at the New York Times.
When it comes to inevitabilities, people always refer to death and taxes. But there's a third item that's even more of a sure thing. I'm referring to the goofiness of the Left. Death is inevitable, but not always predictable. After all, people die at all ages and under diverse circumstances. In much the same way, taxes are always going to be around, but not everyone pays the same ones or at the same rate. However, when it comes to the chowderheads who take pride in identifying themselves as liberals, progressives, statists, socialists or just plain Democrats, as surely as the sun will rise in the east, you can bet the farm that before it sets in the west, any number of these boobs will have you shaking your head and wondering if they're being serious or just going for the cheap laugh.
There are a few decent colleges in America, including Hillsdale and Liberty, where conservatives can safely ensconce their offspring. But if they pony up the dough to send them to Harvard, Yale, Berkeley or even the University of Michigan, they've really got no business griping if the kids return home convinced that Obama is the messiah, that Israel is on the wrong side of the Middle East conflict and that socialism is the most wonderful economic system ever devised by the mind of man. If the kids parrot Joe Biden's insistence that ordering the execution of Osama bin Laden was a gutsy decision or Bill Maher's claim that Mitt Romney is a plutocrat who is "this close to lighting his cigars with $100 bills," their parents better not come complaining to me.
I used to think that if the GOP could ever get a sufficient number of black Americans to leave the huge plantation known as the Democratic Party, liberals would never again win a presidential election. After all, I knew for a fact that the last Democrat to garner a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson, and that was 48 years ago. But I recently discovered that there is an even larger hurdle to get over, and that, I'm sad to say, are female voters. While I understand that roughly one in seven American females is black, the same holds true when it comes to the percentage of male voters. So, although I am rarely shocked, I must confess I was absolutely flummoxed when I went back and checked the statistics for every election since 1980 and found a gender gap that led me to reconsider the wisdom of the 19th Amendment. Now, I'm not one of those Neanderthals who thinks women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, but the evidence strongly suggests they shouldn't be allowed to get too near a ballot box.
When Obama said he found it offensive that anyone would suspect his White House of leaking national security information, I had no option but to laugh so hard I nearly did myself bodily injury. The gall of the man! He has meetings with three or four close advisors, and the next thing you know, New York Times paperboys are on the sidewalk, shouting, "Extry! Extry! Read all about it! A Pakistani doctor told the CIA where Osama bin Laden was hiding!" or "Read all about how the United States and Israel successfully hacked into Iran's nuclear computers!" or "Read all about how Barack Obama personally directs drone attacks from the 16th tee!" Everyone, including those on Obama's side of the aisle, knows exactly how the NY Times was fed those various items intended to make Obama look like a combination of Alexander, the philosopher king, and Gen. George "Old Blood and Guts" Patton. As I see it, he either placed a phone call, had Eric Holder run an errand or hand-delivered the self-aggrandizing information himself.
How do I hate Barack Obama? I might spin Elizabeth Barrett Browning's immortal words and say, "Let me count the ways. I hate him to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach." But even that doesn't quite cover the contempt I have for this past and present community agitator. Fifty long years after Martin Luther King suggested we judge a person by his character, this slug is still waging race warfare. While we are all well-aware that he is basing his entire re-election campaign on separating Americans and playing to wealth envy, religious differences and even engendering gender divisions, it is his insistence on stoking up racial hatred that makes him the archenemy of everything decent that America represents.
When you look at the state of the nation, clearly someone is to blame. If you're a Democrat, you blame Republicans. If you're a Republican, you blame Democrats. If you're Barack Obama, you blame George W. Bush. If you're at least halfway sane, you blame Barack Obama and his stooges in Congress, in the EPA and the Department of Justice. If you spend any time at all on the Internet, you have probably received the electoral map of the United States that tries to convince you that Obama's re-election is a done deal. Fortunately, the map is all wet. For one thing, it concedes Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana, to Obama. For another, it insists that Florida, Virginia and Ohio, are toss-up states, while I'm convinced they're all going for Romney. Frankly, the question that comes to mind is whether it was drawn up by Curly, Moe or James Carville. How is it that the mapmaker manages to ignore all the elections that have taken place since Obama was elected in 2008? How is it that no consideration is given to the fact that a mere two years into his term, the Democrats lost six seats in the Senate and 60 more in the House?
Even though Obama promised to be a post-racial president, we all knew that to be a lie as soon as he appointed Eric Holder to be his Attorney General. Knowing what I did about Mr. Holder, it was my assumption that the only reason he got the job was because Al Sharpton had already turned it down. That being said, I was recently taken aback when I saw a video that Obama has produced for his re-election campaign. In it, he launched what he called "African Americans for Obama," essentially beseeching blacks to keep in mind he shares their pigmentation.
Some people insist that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. It is true that in some basic ways, all politicians are alike. After all, they all want to get re-elected, so they have to spend an inordinate amount of time diving into various pockets seeking campaign contributions. They also have to compromise unless they have overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, as Obama did from 2009-2011, and even he had to finally use bribery and intimidation in order to get ObamaCare, his signature piece of legislation, passed. It's among civilians that one sees the greatest differences between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives, as you'd know if you've ever attended a Tea Party gathering, tend to be civil, respectful of opposing points of view, religious and in awe of the Founding Fathers. Liberals, on the other hand, enjoy behaving like barbarians, whether it's at Wisconsin's state capitol, on Wall Street or in Watts; do everything they can to deprive conservatives of free speech; oppose all religious symbols and ceremonies, while pretending that's the intention of the 1st Amendment; and regularly demonstrate their contempt of people like Washington, Madison and Jefferson, whom they dismiss as slave-owning white guys.
A fact known to most people is that when you get a lower tier job in show business, a job that a lot of people covet simply because they seem glamorous from the outside, a job that generally combines the duties of a nanny and an errand boy, the pay is going to be minimum wage even if your boss is making millions. That's simply life in Hollywood, and one would assume the same would hold true for people who get to brag that they work in the White House. But much to my chagrin, I saw a list recently of the 20 White House jobs that received the largest raises since 2008. Before the Obamas moved in, four of the jobs paid less than $50,000, while another seven paid between $50,000 and $62,500. Four of the positions paid between $100,000 and $130,500. These days, nobody is making less than $70,000 and half of them are pulling down between $100,000 and $172,200.
These days, thanks to all the two-legged vermin scurrying around our nation's capital, it's easy to overlook the fact that those on the left were creating tons of mischief and mayhem long before Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Biden, Dodd and Frank, took control of the government and the propagandists at the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC and CBS, showed the boys at Pravda how it's done when true professionals decide to ballyhoo their glorious leader. For instance, during World War II, Vidkun Quisling made his last name synonymous with treason when he showed Hitler that even a Norwegian could be a loyal Nazi. On the other side of the world, Iva Toquri D'Aquino, better known as "Tokyo Rose," was an American who, as a radio broadcaster for the Japanese, attempted to destroy American military morale in the South Pacific. What made these two individuals so contemptible was that in a time of war they collaborated with their nation's enemies.
