Columnist.
Consider the following hypothetical. Fox News, during the 2008 presidential campaign, learns about a long-ago arrest of a relative of Sen. Barack Obama. Fox calls Obama. It makes an offer Fox assumes he cannot refuse: "Agree to appear on the show of your anti-ObamaCare nemesis, Sean Hannity, or we run the story on your relative's arrest." Obama refuses. Fox runs the story. Turns out the piece so lacks credibility that none of the other newspapers and television outlets, conservative or liberal, follow suit. A Fox executive later brags to a national magazine that Fox did, indeed, try to make mincemeat of Obama by getting him to debate ObamaCare on Hannity's show in exchange for sitting on a hit piece.
If libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Paul, as expected, did well in Iowa. His strong third-place finish is substantially better than he did in 2008, and his national poll numbers are twice what they were back then. Paul's appeal is easy to understand. His antiwar message of limited government, low taxes and federalism have strong appeal, especially to young people who oppose the war on drugs, take a pro-choice position on abortion and support gay marriage. Paul scares people who purport to embrace freedom but fear the responsibility that goes with it. Privatize Social Security? Serious change in Medicare? Call off the war on drugs? End government welfare? He actually believes in the Constitution, an amazing document that many Americans ignore, have not read or are apparently waiting for the movie version.
They're coming for your children! They're coming for the womenfolk! Then they're coming after you! Norman Lear, the famous television show producer, offered this hysterically paranoid assessment of the allegedly growing and presumably insidious power of "the right": "I want to suggest that we lefties start laying claim to what we see as 'sacred' and serve it up proudly to the religious right -- to the James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove ... hatemongers, sheathed in sanctity, and to the Koch brothers, the types that fund them and use them so effectively for their own political power-grabbing purposes. Over the past several decades, the power-grabbing right has built a powerful infrastructure -- radio and TV stations and networks. They've built think tanks, colleges and law schools."
As "Person of the Year," Time magazine named "The Protester." The subhead read, "From the Arab Spring to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow." Well, yes, but what about the lack of American black protesters? Good Lord, where is the racial diversity/inclusion/proportional representation? Back in the day, the tea party's alleged lack of black participants was beyond worrisome to the media. The lack of black faces in the crowd allowed the major media to describe the tea party as racially exclusionary, if not ... racist!
The next best thing to calling a Republican "racist," "sexist," "homophobic," or "Uncle Tom" (where appropriate) is to call him "out of touch." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the latest wealthy Republican to be called "out of touch." The proof? Why, he offered to bet rival Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The amount offered was -- gasp -- $10,000! This, of course, makes him another born-on-third-base-and-thought-he-hit-a-triple Republican. The Democratic National Committee pounced and immediately put out a video: "Mitt Romney: Simply Out of Touch -- Ten Thousand Times Over."
Herman Cain is out. He "suspended" his campaign for the Republican nomination for president this week after a fifth woman made allegations against him. This time, an Atlanta woman claims she had a 13-year-long affair with the former CEO. As with the four other women who made allegations of sexual harassment -- two still unidentified -- Cain denies ever having done "anything inappropriate." Then why quit the race? Quitting means five unmitigated liars -- not just unmitigated liars but, as Cain suggests, coordinated liars -- ran him out of Dodge. If the man who would be commander in chief abandons ship because a handful of liars said awful, unprovable things about him, the nation is better off without him trying to lead it.
When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., announced his intention not to seek re-election after a 32-year career, not one of the nightly news broadcast network anchors found time or space to mention either Frank's central role in the housing meltdown or his congressional reprimand. Not one. Similarly, an Associated Press article headlined, "Democratic Rep. Barney Frank Announces Retirement," mentioned the reprimand, but nada on Frank and the housing collapse. ABC called him "one of the most familiar, powerful and colorful characters on Capitol Hill." NBC said, "Among his legacies -- besides his legendary sharp tongue -- he was the first member of Congress to publicly acknowledge he was gay, back in 1987." In a nearly 30-paragraph press release -- uh, news article -- headlined, "Barney Frank, a Top Liberal, Won't Seek Re-election," The New York Times sanitized, purged and whitewashed.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Everything demanded by the Occupy Wall Streeters -- whether "free" health care, a "world-class education" or a "guaranteed living-wage income regardless of employment" status -- costs money. When a CEO makes a lot of money in the private sector, it is because his company -- rightly or wrongly -- values that CEO's services at that price. To say it is "not right" that a CEO makes (fill in the blank) times more than the janitor is to say it is not right for the marketplace to set wages. If the marketplace ought not set wages, then who or what should?
I just interviewed MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews about his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero." You know things didn't go well when, a few minutes after the interview concludes, Matthews' booker emails my producer: "I wish you would've let me know that Larry was planning on attacking Chris. Chris is always up for a good, healthy debate, but that was really not professional or cool."
"He's got it coming to him," said Ben Bradlee, former editor of The Washington Post. "You can't do that in this town anymore. Probably could do it 50 years ago, but you can't do it now." The "he" was Herman Cain. The "that" means sexual harassment. And the "got it coming" means the media firestorm around the Republican front-runner as he deals with the sexual misconduct accusations that threaten to derail Cain's surprisingly strong candidacy.
Charles Krauthammer of Fox News: "Do you think that race, being a strong black conservative, has anything to do with the fact you've been so charged (with sexual harassment)? And if so, do you have any evidence to support that?" Herman Cain: "I believe the answer is yes, but we do not have any evidence to support it." Playing the race card is vulgar, whether done by Al Sharpton or President Barack Obama -- as he did to contain the Rev. Wright scandal. Especially when, as here, the complainant admits he lacks evidence. If Cain were not a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination -- a shock probably even to him -- the media wouldn't bother. But when the quest goes from curiosity to conceivable, the scrutiny increases exponentially. And who knows how the media got the information, possibly from one of Cain's presumably non-racist GOP rivals.
"Don't touch me!" the man in the wheelchair shouted to stop me from placing my hand on what used to be his left arm. "I'm sorry -- I was just -- " "I know what you were doing," he said calmly. "You were showing me you care. I get it. But you have no idea how much pain I'm in. Don't feel bad. People are always touching me -- and because my left arm is gone and most people are right-handed, well ... Doctors, believe it or not, are the worst -- always touching me there. You'd think they of all people would know better. But they don't." He laughed.
The Occupy Wall Street folks tell us to blame Wall Street for the nation's financial troubles. Notice the no-fly zone over President Barack Obama. Where are the anti-President Barack Obama signs or the verbal chants denouncing the President? Imagine the protests/sit-ins/rallies/mass marches on Pennsylvania Avenue -- not Wall Street -- if after two years of Republican White House leadership, America remained stuck on over 9 percent unemployment! Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Barack Obama say they sympathize with the protestors. Of course, they do. After over two years of reckless spending, the inflationary printing of money, massive "stimulus" that failed to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs, green technology "investments" in soon-to-be-bankrupt companies whose investors donated to and raised money for the President's election and unpopular bailouts, the dismal results are in.
What to do about Herman Cain? This question goes not to the Republican Party, where "establishment" candidates like Mitt Romney privately dismiss Cain as lacking the experience, gravitas and resources to beat President Barack Obama and then to soundly govern the country. Herman Cain is not going to be the GOP nominee.
"The way I think about it is, you know, this is, uh, you know, a great, uh, great country that had gotten a little soft, and you know, we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last, uh, couple of decades. We need to get back on track." -- President Barack Obama. The gall is breathtaking, even from a man who as a presidential candidate said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." This from a President who, in chastising the rich, said, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
Editor's Note: Mark Alexander is away at National Security briefings at NORAD. He will return next week. Enjoy this week's guest column from Larry Elder. Why did the Obama administration, after dragging out the various court challenges to ObamaCare, suddenly step on the gas? The administration surprised court watchers by passing up a chance to slow down ObamaCare's long march to an eventual Supreme Court ruling. In failing to request a hearing by all the appeals court judges of the 11th Circuit -- to overturn an anti-ObamaCare decision by three of its members -- the administration now puts the matter on a faster track to the Supreme Court.
Two and a half years into the Obama presidency, why does the economy still sputter? The first and most popular line of defense, of course, remains to blame it on the George W. Bush administration. Pundits like CNN's Fareed Zakaria falsely attribute the current $1.5 trillion deficit to the "Bush tax cuts," while Obama puts the "cost" at $70 billion a year. MSNBC's Ed Schultz asserts that "98 percent of you" were not affected by the cuts, an odd argument considering that Obama supports extending the Bush-era rates for the very 98 percent that Schultz claims received no benefit.
Sept. 11 unified America. But President George W. Bush "squandered" this shared sense of purpose. We still hear this drivel, mostly from the left, 10 years after the terror attacks. But how did Bush blow this alleged consensus, this shared sense of purpose presumably expected to last, well, forever? Bush's critics pretty much give the same three reasons.
The tea party, according to Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, would "love to see us as second-class citizens" ... and "some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree." Of the tea party's influence on Congress, Carson called it an "effort that we're seeing of Jim Crow." Another CBC member, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said, "The tea party can go straight to hell." This was too much for Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., the only Republican member of the CBC. Another black Republican, Tim Scott, R-S.C., pointedly declined to even join the CBC. Given the hard-left views of the CBC, one wonders why West joined in the first place. West, presumably, thought he might change the CBC's "blame whitey" approach to the problems and concerns of black Americans.
The Irish cabdriver complained almost nonstop during our half-hour drive to the Belfast International Airport. He especially worried about the job prospects for his 20-something son and, for that matter, about those for the generation of young people who face a "sh-tty" future on this beautiful island full of friendly people.
