If there’s one term I would like to see retired in 2013, it’s the one so much favored by politicians and other hypocrites: “With all due respect.”

Has anyone in the history of the world begun a sentence with those four words that didn’t immediately evolve into the equivalent of calling the other person a charlatan, a thief or an ignoramus?

Recently, we had Hillary Clinton open her remarks to Sen. Ron Johnson with those words just before going into her well-rehearsed rant about nobody needing to know whether Ambassador Stevens and his three colleagues were killed by members of al Qaeda or by some guys taking a nighttime stroll in Benghazi who suddenly decided to kill Americans.

If my Aunt Hilda had said something that stupid, it would only matter to her husband, my Uncle Morrie. But this is the woman who, in her mid-60s, still has her eye on the White House. It’s hard to believe that she had four months to come up with a response, and that bit of hammy stage craft was the best that the Secretary of State and the spin merchants in Obama’s White House could come up with. Heck, even I could feign moral outrage better than that.

Isn’t it odd that nobody in this Second Amendment-bashing administration ever said, “Who cares what kinds of guns were used in Newtown? Isn’t it enough that 20 little children were murdered by a loon?”

If there’s one thing you can count on from Obama and his minions, it’s that they’re always ready to take responsibility, at least so long as neither self-sacrifice nor punishment is involved. Instead, whether it’s Eric Holder or Mrs. Clinton, their defense always seems to be that they didn’t bother reading memos, whether they came from the ATF regarding weapons being delivered to Mexican gangbangers or from their ambassadors begging for their lives.

What I find the most distressing is that Mrs. Clinton, has never displayed anything special when it comes to intelligence, wisdom or personal character. In fact, aside from arrogance and naked political ambition, I can’t come up with a single human quality I could easily attribute to her. In spite of that, she has a 59% approval rating among American voters a scant four years before the next presidential election.

Inasmuch as even in the wake of his re-election, Obama’s own rating is barely 50%, it behooves Republicans to start getting the truth out about this combination of Michelle Obama, Evita Peron and a rabid weasel, and the sooner the better. And let’s not have any of that “with all due respect” malarkey; ridicule is the best weapon to use on the terminally pompous.

The only reason that these left-wing boobs get away with the stuff they do is because we have a media that views its mission to be Obama’s first line of defense. The depths to which the MSM has sunk can be seen in a recent piece written by John Dickerson. Titled “Go for the Throat,” the article advises Barack Obama to declare war on the GOP. In the course of the piece, he employed such verbs as “destroy” and “pulverize,” in spelling out exactly what Obama needs to do during his second administration if he’s going to fulfill his destiny.

Although he was merely parroting what the likes of Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Joy Behar and David Letterman, say every day on TV, what sets Mr. Dickerson apart from those other shills is that he is the political director of CBS News, whose motto these days should be: “Delivering the News: Unfair and Unbalanced.”

At least he wasn’t guilty of hypocrisy. He didn’t pretend to be engaged in civil discourse. He leaves that swill to politicians, especially those of the Republican persuasion. Considering that we conservatives despise most of our politicians nearly as much as liberals do, you would think they might at least consider changing their tactics. When our party leaders speak respectfully to or about the likes of Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi, it reeks of cowardice. Our side kowtows to them, and they return the favor by labeling our representatives a bunch of fascists, yahoos and racists.

When conservatives constantly insist on taking the high road, they merely invite more contempt from liberals. If any conservative in the House or Senate actually voiced an honest opinion of those blockheads on the other side of the aisle, the chances are that even Mr. Dickerson would be forced to air it on the evening news. The high road isn’t just the road less travelled, it’s a road that no liberal would ever set foot on.

For that matter, in the war over guns, why hasn’t a single Republican dared to point out that nearly all 506 of those gun-related killings that took place in Chicago last year were committed by young blacks, and they were mainly using hand guns. Even Mayor Rahm Emanuel understands that nothing Barack Obama, Joe Biden or Dianne Feinstein, has proposed would have prevented any of those murders. But there isn’t a single big city mayor – virtually all of whom are Democrats – who would dare declare war on those who have turned “urban” into a synonym for “killing field.”

Speaking of Obama, although it got scant attention, in the course of his inaugural address, he promised “Peace in our time.” Although liberal pinheads have compared His Fatuousness to Abe Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, perhaps he feels a special kinship to Neville Chamberlain. After all, it was he, the umbrella-wielding prime minister who returned to London after meeting with Hitler in Munich, to announce “We will have peace in our time.” Much to his chagrin, and not too many people’s surprise, Hitler invaded Poland a few months later.

Ever since then, “peace in our time” has come to represent those who foolishly and dangerously subscribe to the belief that dictators can be trusted to abide by treaties, and that pacifism is a perfectly legitimate basis for a nation’s foreign policy.

Finally, in the wake of the inaugural, much was made of the fact that Beyonce lip-synced the National Anthem. I didn’t object, though. For one thing, I think she looks better than she sings. For another thing, even if she wasn’t performing live, that was actually her voice.

What I take exception to is the sort of lip-synching Juan Williams engages in during his all too frequent appearances on Fox News. I see his lips flapping, but all I ever hear is Barack Obama.

NOTE: I have been approached to host an internet talk radio show. The only hang-up is that it requires a certain level of sponsorship in order to get started. If you own a company, sell a product or provide a service, or if you know someone – preferably someone dedicated to conservatism – who owns a company, sells a product or provides a service, who would be willing to consider sponsoring my show, please contact me at [email protected], and I will be happy to answer any and all questions. In the meantime, you will all be alerted once I get airborne. Best of all, if the show does well, I will be able to quit dunning you folks for donations to the Fund to Keep Burt Prelutsky From Pursuing a Life of Crime!