Can we all agree that the recent riots in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO, had as much to do with the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown as it did with a hurricane in Hawaii or a square dance in Iowa?

As I have written in the past, a legitimate protest consists of tossing tea into Boston Harbor; it doesn’t involve stealing a TV. Time and again, young black thugs in Detroit, L.A., Philadelphia and now St. Louis, have taken advantage of an event to run amok, turning over cars, looting stores and setting fires. They do it because they are bottom-feeders who feel empowered by corrupt politicians, a liberal media and race hustlers like Al Sharpton, to carry out the sort of violence which when committed by one or two individuals results in jail time, but when committed by a mob results in liberal pundits justifying the mayhem.

A reader, Bob Alton, wrote to me, posing the following question: Now that Hillary Clinton is speaking out against Obama’s foreign policy, can we expect her to be branded a racist? It’s a fair question when you realize that her husband was labeled one in 2008 for no other reason than that he campaigned for his wife during the primaries, and “racist” has been branded on the rump of every Republican who has voiced an objection to anything Obama has said or done over the past six years.

It’s no secret that Democrats, including Obama, have been pressuring the older liberals on the Supreme Court to retire ASAP so that Obama can leave a longer lasting impression on America. I think it’s a move that can wind up biting the Democrats in the butt in 2016. After all, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 81, Anthony Kennedy, 78, and Stephen Breyer, 76, are too old for the job, which pretty much consists of sitting around reading briefs and occasionally casting a vote, it might be hard to convince people they should run out and vote for Hillary Clinton, who will be 69 when the 2016 election takes place, and a ripe 77 by the time her second term would conclude. But perhaps they simply assume that being the commander-in-chief is as easy a gig as Obama makes it seem: rounds of golf, interspersed occasionally with expensive vacations and fund-raising galas.

Speaking of things that have not only ripened, but dropped off the tree and are well on their way to being mulch, we have Jimmy Carter. According to a recent article in the Washington Times, the reason that Carter, who once condemned Israel as an apartheid nation, is such a vociferous fan of Hamas is because he blames his loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980 on Jewish voters.

As a Jew, nothing would make me prouder. However, inasmuch as Reagan garnered 43 million votes to Carter’s paltry 35 million, and 489 electoral votes to Carter’s infinitesimal 49, and that Jews represent a mere 2% of the population, it’s a bit far-fetched. What’s more, although he did better than other recent GOP presidential candidates, Reagan still managed to lose the Jewish vote 39% to Carter’s 45%.

If Carter is going to be pissed off with anyone, it should be with John Anderson, the third party candidate who sucked off the other 16%. But I guess Carter figures it’s cooler to be an anti-Semite than to target Anderson, a member of the Evangelical Free Church. It certainly explains why he’s so revered in the Middle East and why the Carter Presidential Library owes its very existence to Arab and Muslim donors.

As you have no doubt heard, Donald Sterling has been deprived by a confederacy of sharks and skunks of his legal ownership of the L.A. Clippers, all because of the public exposure of his private comments to a girlfriend. I only hope that when, inevitably, the racist comments of black basketball players are made public by their disgruntled ex-wives, business associates, former teammates and publicity-hungry groupies, they, too, will be slam-dunked by the NBA. But somehow I doubt if any of us will live that long.

Finally, when I see all the terrible mischief taking place in the world, much of it the result of Obama’s feckless foreign policy, I long for the time when America spoke softly but, like the beat cops in the old days, carried a big night stick.

Alas, we’ve gone from a time when our allies relied on us and our foes feared us to what we have today, a world in which our allies feel betrayed and our enemies are emboldened.

In short, we have gone from the Monroe Doctrine to what can only be called the Moron’s Doctrine.