Although it is commonly accepted that Obama is the worst president in American history, having wrested the title out of Jimmy Carter’s clammy grasp, we shouldn’t be too quick to overlook the damage Carter did. By deciding that the Shah of Iran was a bad guy who didn’t deserve our support, Carter rolled out the red carpet for the Islamic revolutionaries who have spent the past few decades fomenting trouble for the world.

One of the first things they did under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini was to take American diplomats hostage, holding 52 of them for 444 days until the day that Ronald Reagan took office. Then, realizing that they were now facing a man with a backbone, they released the 52 on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 1981.

Today, the Iranians are facing yet another spineless wonder, and they’re taking full advantage of that fact. They tell John Kerry they won’t turn off their centrifuges and he says okay. They say they won’t send their enriched uranium to Russia (and isn’t that a brilliant idea?) and Kerry says okay. They say that if we impose sanctions, they’ll walk away from the table, even though it was the sanctions that brought them to Switzerland in the first place, and Kerry, taking his cue from Obama, says he doesn’t blame them.

And what do the Democrats say? Naturally, they back their glorious leader. How dare we impose sanctions on the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world! Next those crazy Republicans will be suggesting we go to war with Iran before the Ayatollah has a nuclear arsenal at his disposal, making it a fair fight!

Some people wonder why Obama is so conciliatory towards Iran. I’m not one of those people. That’s because I have been on enough school playgrounds to know that there’s always a bully around. But they are never alone. They are always surrounded by a pack of sniveling, boot-licking lackeys who can always be counted upon to cheer him on whenever he decides to bloody some smaller kid’s nose, grateful that it’s not their nose.

One of those schoolyard cowards would have been young Obama. Some things never change. So long as Iran doesn’t nuke him, he’s happy to let them bully Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the UAE, Yemen, Iraq and Israel.

What’s more, Obama thinks that no matter how lousy a deal he makes with Iran, it will give historians a peg upon which to declare him a peace lover in a league with Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, although he would more closely resemble Vidkun Quisling, Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter.

As for John Kerry, his hunger for a deal, any deal, lies in the fact that he understands it would guarantee that, he, like Al Gore, Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, would be a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

In other news, inasmuch as Andreas Lubitz was apparently suffering from suicidal depression and also going blind, you have to wonder whether Lufthansa would draw the line at hiring a pilot who had Ebola, was afraid of heights or was too short to see through the window.

In Indiana, liberals and gays have once again banded together to take on civility and commonsense. If I were a florist or a baker, I wouldn’t turn away any business. But it seems to me that if merchants are allowed to turn away customers because they’re not wearing shoes or shirts, those with religious convictions should be allowed to deny their wares or services to same-sex fiancés.

Those who contend that it smacks of Jim Crow are forgetting that under that vile system, it was state-sanctioned bigotry targeting those of a specific race. Even if café and drugstore owners wished to serve lunch to blacks, they were prevented from doing so. That’s a far cry from those whose convictions prevent their taking any part in a wedding service they find religiously objectionable.

It’s not as if there aren’t bakers or florists or wedding photographers who have no such compunctions. So why are homosexuals encouraged to target Christians who are willing to place their principles ahead of profits?

It is particularly offensive when a huge corporation such as Apple, which happily does business in China and various cesspools in the Middle East, pretends to give a damn if homosexuals can buy their nosegays and wedding cakes from those who don’t wish to sell them. When is the last time Apple gave two figs about anything but their bottom line?

My advice is that the citizens of Indiana and anyone else who believes religious freedom trumps the petty demands of a few sexual oddballs should alert the folks at Apple, Suburu, NASCAR, Marriott, the NBA, Walmart, and all the other corporate bullies pretending to be holier-than-the Hoosiers that boycotts work in both directions.

Although the Supreme Court hasn’t yet decided that same-sex marriages, a screwball notion if I’ve ever heard one, should be granted constitutional status, the justices weren’t too busy to side with the high school administrators who sent home four students for daring to wear American flag shirts. Their rationale was that to have done otherwise might have incited Hispanic students to violence. I guess kowtowing to bullies is more widespread than even I imagined.

If I had been the principal at the high school, I would have gone on the P.A. system and announced (in English) that any Hispanic who was so deeply offended at the sight of an American flag was free to leave both the high school and the country, but the police would be on campus and would be arresting troublemakers.

When you see the way that Hillary Clinton blatantly flouts the law when it comes to her email, I can only imagine that Richard (“Sock it to me”) Nixon must be looking on and shaking his head, muttering: “I couldn’t even get away with concealing 18 ½ minutes of tape, and this one erases over 30,000 emails and the Democrats can’t wait to commence the coronation ceremony.”

My friend Shirley Maikoski is concerned that Trey Gowdy and the other Republicans investigating Mrs. Clinton might be moving a tad too quickly. She wants them to drag things out past Inauguration Day in 2017 so that Obama can’t pardon her, the way that Bill Clinton spent his last day in office, pardoning financial fugitive Marc Rich; his half-brother Roger, who was convicted on cocaine charges, and Susan McDougal, who took the hit for Whitewater; along with 137 other convicted felons.

When I urge that the United States be cured of its political schizophrenia by being divided into two separate nations, I have historical precedence on my side. In 1947, Pakistan was partitioned off from India. I contend that the Muslims and the Hindus, in spite of their historical hatred of one another, had more in common than liberals and conservatives have in 2015 America.

Finally, thanks to Megyn Kelly’s constantly rolling out Mark Hannah and Kirsten Powers, I have begun exhibiting flu symptoms. As a result, my doctor has warned me I have to cut my viewing hours way down. It seems I am regularly exceeding my monthly quota of smugness.