Finally, a Little Good News
I would actually enjoy being a purveyor of good tidings, but, as a rule, I would have to engage in deceit to do so. But even I was over-whelmed by the amount of positive feedback I generated when I wrote the truth about Mohammad Ali. Apparently, a lot of you shared the piece with friends and relatives because I heard from a lot of strangers. But what made the response really terrific was that only one person took me to task. But he proved himself a pinhead because he made no attempt to counter my arguments against the glorification of Ali, but simply called me a few names.
I would actually enjoy being a purveyor of good tidings, but, as a rule, I would have to engage in deceit to do so. But even I was over-whelmed by the amount of positive feedback I generated when I wrote the truth about Mohammad Ali.
Apparently, a lot of you shared the piece with friends and relatives because I heard from a lot of strangers. But what made the response really terrific was that only one person took me to task. But he proved himself a pinhead because he made no attempt to counter my arguments against the glorification of Ali, but simply called me a few names.
I tried to watch as little of the endless tributes to the draft-dodger as I could, but I did see Billy Crystal make a complete dunce of himself at the Louisville send-off by suggesting that Ali had earned his place in the Pantheon: “Maybe once in a thousand years, we have a Mozart, a Picasso, a Shakespeare.”
So, Crystal, who seemed to make a living for a while impersonating Ali and serving as the man’s personal little mascot, thinks Ali was a great artist because he had a good jab and a big mouth. Or perhaps he isn’t referring to the artistic giants of the ages, but was actually referring to such pugilists as “Slapsy Maxie” Mozart, “Kid” Picasso and “Wild Willie” Shakespeare, the Pride of Avon.
They called it a memorial service, but it was actually a Democratic mini-convention. Keeping with the general tenor of the event, they dug up an anti-Israel rabbi, Michael Lerner, to give the invocation. By channeling his inner Bernie Sanders, he took the opportunity to rail against the 1% of Americans who possess 80% of the wealth.
Of course attendees such as the Clintons are among the 1%, but they know, just as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, Ted Turner, George Soros and Mark Cuban, know, Rabbi Lerner wasn’t talking about them. That’s because they all speak the same language and finance the same politicians, so they haven’t been contaminated by their wealth the way that Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers have.
Mitch McConnell, about whom I recently wrote that I wagered his first word wasn’t “mama” or “papa,” but “harrumph,” opined that Donald Trump doesn’t know much about the issues. It set me to wondering which was worse — not knowing much about the issues, about which one could easily learn, or, like McConnell, being wrong about all of them.
The State Department claims they have no idea who placed the call that demanded that an 8-minute section of a recorded press conference in which former spokesperson Jan Psaki pretty much admitted that the administration had lied about the nuclear agreement with Iran be excised. Thus far, the short list of possible suspects is Barack Obama, John Kerry, Valerie Jarrett and me.
Thus far, the person who received the phone call doesn’t remember who it was and apparently didn’t recognize the voice. That has led me to conclude that I must have made the call because I’m quite sure he or she would have recognized one of the others.
Proving that some people are absolutely shameless mainly because the media would never even consider shaming them, Hillary Clinton recently delivered a speech condemning income inequality while wearing a coat costing $12,500.
When people refer to inflation, they generally have the price of cars, homes and groceries in mind, but I think there are other types of inflation that are even more telling. For instance, during the 1940s, when FDR was waging World War II, his White House staff numbered 100. Today, when Barack Obama is waging war on the U.S. Constitution, his staff numbers 4,000.
Speaking of he who should be shunned, after a Muslim named Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at Pulse, one of Orlando’s gay night clubs, after shouting “Allah Akbar,” Obama went on TV claiming we have no idea what his motivation may have been.
He’s right, of course. Even though Muslims make a practice of killing homosexuals in the Middle East, possibly Mateen merely objected to the loud music or the slow dancing. One can always count on Obama responding in moderation to Islamic terrorism. It’s only those Republicans in Congress who really get under his skin.
Although Obama predictably tried to blame the guns, not the killer, once again he was undone by the facts. It seems Mateen worked as a security officer, so he had obviously breezed through all the legal stop signs that the Democrats keep proposing in their attempt to nullify the Second Amendment.
In a related matter, the TV pundits kept trying to determine if Mateen was self-radicalized or was following orders from ISIS. If there is a bigger waste of time than trying to separate ISIS from Al Qaeda or Boko Haram or the Taliban or Iran or Islam, itself, I can’t imagine what it is. It is high time we stopped being distracted by names or geography.
There may be jealousy roiling around in jihadist circles as they compete to out-do each other in terms of body counts. But I can guarantee there was similar jealousy among the German generals, but we didn’t go around pretending that there was any real difference between the Nazis waging war in Stalingrad or the ones circling the Maginot Line or Rommel’s tank corps in North Africa. The monster had many tentacles, but they were all connected to the same evil body then, just as they are today.
The thing that makes liberals so despicable isn’t merely that they’re wrong on all the important issues, but that they intentionally lie about the motives of the other side. For instance, they pretend that when conservatives oppose illegal aliens and support sovereign borders, they are actually aligned against all immigrants.
It is impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt because doing so would be to suggest that they are all too stupid to tie their own shoes. Surely even the dumbest knucklehead in Congress — Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, for instance — realizes that claim makes as much sense as being against burglars is the same as being against house guests or having one’s widowed mother living in your home.
Or, for that matter, consider that Barack Obama, the same guy who has insisted for years he couldn’t address any scandal, ranging from Operation Fast & Furious to Benghazi, because of an ongoing investigation, threw caution to the wind when endorsing Hillary Clinton in spite of 2,475 ongoing investigations into her private server.
I hope that after eight years of Obama, a man who has gotten away with trashing the Constitution and legislating by presidential edict, the buffoons among us will stop parroting the cliché that, however we may feel about this president or that president, we must honor the office. The office is just a room, and it is the person who occupies it who brings honor or shame to it.
Some matches almost seem to be divinely ordained. For instance, when Hal Roach teamed Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, he created a comedy unit that was far superior to its separate parts. When RKO teamed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, it was said that he gave her class and she provided him sex appeal.
But now I’m hearing rumors that some people are suggesting that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren team up in a run for the White House.
As a Republican, I can hardly ask for more. Even Donald Trump, who trips over his tongue more often than Dick Van Dyke used to trip over his hassock, should be able to defeat a team that has so little class and even less sex appeal.
