Columnist.
Prior to Memorial Day, 2011, Louis Zamperini visited Washington, D.C., where I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing him. The man was as sharp as the proverbial tack. He inscribed Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling biography, "Unbroken" to me with "Be Hardy." And he was. This is the column I wrote about him and what he stood for. The film of the book, directed by Angelina Jolie, will be released in December. Perhaps you've heard of him, perhaps not. Louis Zamperini has had fame, lost it and seen it restored more than once. That happens when you are 94 years old and must be re-introduced to succeeding generations.
There are many ways to lose freedom -- conquering armies, surrendering without a fight. Unfortunately, we are currently surrendering our freedom, not to a foreign power, but to our own government. The growth, reach, and cost of big government is happening before our eyes and eroding our liberty, largely because too many Americans are not familiar with the brilliant system of government our Founders established. Progressives prefer a "living Constitution," which is constantly changing to conform to their ideology. What it is not is the Constitution established by the Founders.
President Obama appears to have forgotten -- or ignored -- why we have elections. One reason is to stop, or slow down, an agenda the public doesn't like. When polls began reflecting buyer's remorse about Mr. Obama in 2010, voters elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and might well have done the same in the Senate in 2012 were it not for some weak GOP candidates, especially in Nevada and Delaware. President Obama acts as if elections other than his own don't matter. His attitude seems to be, "I have the power and the rest of government be damned." In another speech (does he talk in his sleep?) last week in Minneapolis, the president said of House Republicans, "They don't do anything except block me and call me names." Actually, Republicans have passed scores of bills, virtually all of which have died in the Senate, because Majority Leader Harry Reid refuses to bring them up for a vote, much less debate. It is Reid who is the real obstructionist.
People who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid known as global warming-climate change are not just "deniers"; we are guilty of a "nihilistic refusal" to address the issue. So says a Washington Post editorial commenting favorably on Monday's Supreme Court ruling that allows the Environmental Protection Agency, under certain limits, to proceed under the Clean Air Act to regulate major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. The actual nihilists are those who refuse to accept any scientific information that undermines their claim that the globe is warming and humans are responsible for it. Cults are like that. Regardless of evidence contradicting their beliefs, cultists persist in blind faith.
It is a line I have used to open speeches on the lecture circuit for years and it never fails to get a laugh: "I'm happy to be here tonight from Washington, D.C., where the only politicians with convictions are in prison." That's only partially true. Democrats have convictions. They know what to do with power when they get it and how to isolate, even punish, any member of their party who dares to take a different position on an issue. Republicans seem to constantly react to the policies of Democrats or slam each other instead of making a case for the superiority of their ideas. It doesn't help Republicans that they lack the Democrats' uniformity.
Too little, too late?
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain..." (The Gettysburg Address) No life is more wasted than one lost in vain. After the U.S. military battled heroically to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and to eliminate the possibility that it might become a staging area for terrorist attacks, the Obama administration has created a vacuum now being filled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaida affiliate, which has overrun Mosul and Fallujah, cities liberated by American soldiers. ISIS now threatens Baghdad.
I expected nothing but effusive praise from major media for Hillary Clinton's new book, "Hard Choices," much like the mass exaltation it showered on Barack Obama, America's first African-American president. Initially that seemed where the reviews were headed. Prior to the book's official release June 10, the "journalists" on CBS "This Morning" spent nine minutes of barely restrained excitement promoting Clinton's book. Host Charlie Rose called it "a portrait of doggedness." CBS News political director John Dickerson said the book portrays "a hardworking person who flew all around the world grinding it out."
Defenders of President Obama's release of five Taliban terrorists from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl cite as justification Israel's history of swapping hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for one or two Israel soldiers. As strong an ally and example of democracy as Israel is, especially in a region sorely lacking in either, Israel is not the United States. Israel has its own interests and purpose for its actions. The world looks to the United States for leadership and in this president and his administration it has found little. There are important distinctions between Israeli prisoner exchanges and the Bergdahl deal. First, according to many who served with him, Sgt. Bergdahl deliberately walked away from his post. The Israeli soldiers were captured while doing their jobs.
Given the numerous studies revealing how American education lags behind instruction in other countries in disciplines once thought to be essential, it should come as no surprise that on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, a lot of people are clueless about central elements of the Allied invasion of the European continent on June 6, 1944. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has released the results of a survey, which finds only slightly more than half (54 percent) of those who took a multiple choice quiz knew that Dwight D. Eisenhower was the supreme commander of Allied forces on D-Day. Fewer than half knew Franklin Roosevelt was president and 15 percent identified the location of the landing as Pearl Harbor, not beaches named Utah and Omaha. One in 10 college students were among those giving the wrong answer.
Euphoria over the Taliban's release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was quickly tempered by media reports that Bergdahl had abandoned his post and that his father made comments opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bergdahl's father tweeted, "I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of every Afghan child." Does that include those children killed while being used as human shields by the Taliban? Where is Bergdahl's concern for women who die from "honor killings" and for girls who are denied an education?
While Tea Party candidates underperformed against establishment Republican incumbents in recent U.S. primary elections, in Europe their conservative cousins have just scored some spectacular victories. Commentators are calling elections for seats in the European Parliament and local council seats in Britain a "political earthquake" and "revolution" as strongly conservative candidates made significant gains. In Britain, the UK Independent Party (UKIP) outperformed the established Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. Labour hired one of President Obama's top political strategists, David Axelrod, as a consultant. It didn't help.
In the 1970s, while working as a low-paid cub reporter in Houston, Texas, I always looked forward to the annual Christmas catalogs from Neiman-Marcus and Sakowitz, a local luxury department store. Both contained outrageously expensive things that only the super-rich could afford -- his and hers Thunderbirds stick in my memory. My wife and I couldn't wait to thumb through them and we frequently laughed at how much some of the items cost, wondering if even rich Texans would spend so extravagantly. Another tribute to conspicuous wealth comes in the annual "Rich List," a guide to the 1,000 richest men and women in Britain, published in a special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine. A fat feline sits proudly on the cover with the symbol of a British pound (in gold) around its neck.
President Obama Wednesday replayed a familiar scenario when dealing with scandal, in this case delays for treatment, deaths, alleged cover-ups and other acts of malfeasance reported at Veterans Administration hospitals in the United States: first express outrage, next announce an investigation and then say he won't comment on the scandal until the results of the investigation are in, promising people will be held "accountable," if they violated the law. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, critics are using the VA scandal to indict Obamacare. They believe what is occurring at VA hospitals is a preview of coming destruction should the U.S. government move beyond meddling in health insurance into a full-scale takeover of the entire health care system.
Karl Rove, the bete noir for Democrats (and some Republicans), has dared to raise questions about Hillary Clinton's health. The New York Post first reported a conversation between Rove, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Dan Raviv of CBS News about Mrs. Clinton's fall and concussion in December 2012. Rove was quoted as saying, "Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that." Bill Clinton defended his wife saying she is "in better shape" than he is, but confirmed that it took "six months" of "very serious work" to recover from her concussion. A State Department spokesperson said it was 30 days. Which is it?
Once, Social Security was the "third rail" of politics. Touch it and face political death. Now it is homosexuality. Criticize anything gay people do and you risk ostracism, fines, suspension or loss of your livelihood. Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted by a National Football League team -- the St. Louis Rams picked him 249th in the last round -- is being treated by the media and those in the gay rights movement as the equivalent of an early American pioneer. Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones, apparently, didn't get the memo. Jones tweeted "OMG" and "horrible" after he saw Sam and his boyfriend kiss each other live on ESPN. His tweet was quickly taken down, but the political correctness police swooped in anyway. Jones has been fined and suspended. He's also being forced to attend "educational training" to get his "mind right," to borrow a phrase from the film "Cool Hand Luke." This sounds like the old communist "re-education" camps.
I have great respect for the humility displayed by Pope Francis, but in his latest call for the "legitimate" redistribution of wealth, he has it backward. Instead of taking more money from those who have earned it, he should advocate for creating new wealth. If the money I have earned, saved, invested and spent responsibly to care for myself and my family is confiscated by the state (and goodness knows the state already takes a lot of it), who is going to care for us should I retire or become incapacitated? I can't live on Social Security alone. What will happen to the charities to which I now contribute? Will the government give them an equivalent amount? Where will that money come from?
Ever since the Supreme Court ruled organized prayer and Bible study in public schools unconstitutional in the early 1960s, conservative Christians have been trying to re-enter the secular arena. Take Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The case, The New York Times wrote last year, "...challenged a 1968 Pennsylvania law that reimbursed religious schools for some expenses, including teachers' salaries and textbooks, so long as they related to instruction on secular subjects also taught in the public schools. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger ... said the law violated the First Amendment's prohibition of government establishment of religion. The ruling set out what came to be known as the Lemon test, which requires courts to consider whether the challenged government practice has a secular purpose, whether its primary effect is to advance or inhibit religion, and whether it fosters excessive government entanglement with religion."
Most people, perhaps even the super-wealthy, who are usually accountable to auditors, want to know where their money goes. This is especially true when they detect money for which they can't account. Not so with the federal government. Some recent headlines reflect a disturbing pattern that has contributed to our $17 trillion debt and to a growing cynicism among the public, which increasingly regards government in a negative light. Here are just a few recent gems gleaned from reading newspaper stories and wire service reports: "Pentagon to destroy $1 billion in ammunition." This USA Today story says, "It is impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction ... remains viable because the Defense Department's inventory systems can't share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report..."
Faith is making a comeback among liberal Democrats, but they still have a way to go. First, some history. Hoping to attract some Evangelical Christian votes more than 20 years ago, former vice president Al Gore wrote that the biblical story of Noah and the Ark could be paraphrased in modern terms, "Thou shalt preserve biodiversity" ("Earth in the Balance" p. 245). Gore also claimed the first recorded instance of pollution was when Cain killed Abel and Abel's blood "falls on the ground, rendering it fallow" (p. 247).
