Columnist.
One of John Dillinger's most famous quips was that Bonnie and Clyde were giving bank robbing a bad name. In this century, that honor goes to Elizabeth Warren, who has succeeded in smearing ancestry archeology with a bad name, and maybe bank robbing too — I don't know her that well.
Although the outrage industry failed to materialize in California Democrats' recent campaign against In-N-Out Burger, it has scored many victories in the past and can look forward to more triumphs in the future.
On May 22, 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks entered the Senate chamber and approached Charles Sumner, who was sitting at his desk applying a postal frank to copies of his "Crime Against Kansas" speech, in which he excoriated Sen. Andrew Butler for embracing "the harlot, Slavery." Brooks beat the unsuspecting Sumner senseless with a dog-whip cane, sending him into convalescence for the next three years and ending what remained of "reasoned discourse" in the Senate.
As the passage of time gnaws away at memories of Peter Strzok's testimony before Congress and America's outrage industry ratchets its screech-o-meter up a notch or two, perhaps a few observations about the FBI's noteworthy apparatchik are in order.
If a doppelganger of Joseph Goebbels, the "poison dwarf" propaganda minister of the Third Reich, were somehow to leap into the 21st century and embark on a Tocqueville-like tour of his country's former enemy, probably he would be stunned by developments thought to have perished with the Nazis' defeat in 1945.
The phalanx of morose expressions that greeted President Trump's first State of the Union speech made Eeyore look like an optimist; indeed, if frowns are supposed to trigger more muscles than smiles, Democrats' facial calisthenics must have left them exhausted as they slunk out of the chamber scorching the air with resentment on the way. Although their serial scowling hints uniformity, the following taxonomy that categorizes recent and well-publicized events suggests at least a few differences among them.
One of Carol Burnett's most hilarious skits involves a distraught woman pleading for her husband's kidnappers to release him, whatever the cost. The scene begins with a police investigator accompanied by a gaggle of cameramen led by Harvey Korman, a reporter who interviews the grieving Burnett.
If politics is downstream from culture, as Andrew Breitbart famously quipped, a corollary could be that hatred for President Trump is downstream from hatred for America.
A few weeks ago, I spent quality time with some too-brainy-for-my-own-good colleagues, who exchanged views on famous historical figures who influenced their intellectual development.
If the expression déjà vu had any competitors, likely they would be found in 2017's proliferation of diatribes exploding from the lips of Donald Trump's opponents.
Popping up amidst tales of destruction, loss of lives, and heroic rescues in Houston was a contemptible crack that appeared in a Twitter feed about how red state Trump supporters deserved what they got.
The orgy of statue demolition by thugs posing as the country's racial watchdogs has generated predictable reactions from ideological purists left and right and stirred ripples of concern among most Americans.
Perhaps the most accurate depiction of American media's fanatical opposition to President Trump is a Glenn McCoy cartoon, which slaps viewers in the face by showing a maniacal inmate wrapped in a straightjacket inside a padded cell.
If conscientious observers were to take seriously news headlines about President Trump, many would have to conclude that Americans had elected a Charlie Chan mustachioed despot sporting a Kookie hairdo (from *77 Sunset Strip*), and a temperament hissing with Darth Vader-like venom or Larry-Moe-Curly buffoonery, depending on the situation. Clarion calls for impeachment from furrow-browed swamp creatures likely are motivated by President Vader's pledge to drain their native habitat.
Fortunately, I missed blow-by-blow accounts of House Republicans' self-destruction, though leftist gloating continues to linger in the air like a bad smell, regardless of efforts to squeegee politics out of one's life for a long weekend.
Observing Hollywood's posturing poseurs deliver their goods at the Oscars, as they ooze self-righteousness and narcissism, triggers a pesky thought that no doubt erupts in the minds of normal people. That is, few of those luminaries strutting across the stage are affected by the events or ideas targeted by their ego-driven drivel. Thus, the question arises, what if they were? More than that, what if America's elites in the entertainment industry, political realm, media complexes, and academic institutions were forced to suffer the consequences of the views they hold, the policies they force on the rest of us? This tantalizing hypothetical is worth a thought experiment or two.
Reading about Hollywood's posturing poseurs deliver their goods at the Oscars (who can stand to watch this event?), as they ooze with self-righteousness and narcissism, triggers a pesky thought that no doubt erupts in the minds of countless normal people. That is, none of those luminaries strutting across the stage are affected by events or ideas targeted by their feverishly stroked, ego-driven drivel.
Here is a short list that could be considered by state legislatures as well as by an institution that itself should be abolished — the Federal Department of Education.
The circus atmosphere bursting through breathless reports of the president's recent immigration order have triggered incomprehensible judicial rulings and slanderous accusations made by public officials whose loyalties are to anything but the law, our Constitution and fellow American citizens. But amidst the turmoil of events punctuating President Trump's third week in office, one rarely encounters depictions of soundless heartbeats fluttering in the reverential tone that envelopes the ceremony of an individual becoming an American citizen on a legal basis.
