The Patriot Post® · The Fifth Season

We are all aware of the four seasons, but every election year provides us with a fifth. Thanks to politicians and those who rely on politicians for their daily bread, we find ourselves in the silly season.

It seems that you can’t turn around without finding yourself bombarded with so many political platitudes and inanities that, were they only bricks, you could use them to build a 30-foot wall at our southern border.

Just recently, Barack Obama gave a vote of confidence to his economic advisors. And why wouldn’t he, with the economy zipping along on all cylinders, at least according to Joe Biden? Still, if I were Tim Geithner, I think I’d get to work on my resume. As anyone who follows professional sports knows, any time a team owner gives a coach or manager a vote of confidence, it’s code for “Don’t let the door hit you in the fanny on your way out.”

While there’s no sure way to predict who would replace Geithner, we can get a start on narrowing down the candidates. After all, if history tells us anything, it’s that whomever Obama appoints will be a tax cheat.

A number of people I like and respect believe it is disgraceful that Christine O'Donnell won the GOP primary in Delaware. I am not one of them. What I find disgraceful is that her opponent, Mike Castle, called himself a Republican and yet voted with the Democrats nearly as often as Henry Waxman.

Do I believe that Ms. O'Donnell is an ideal candidate? I do not. But, unfortunately, Ronald Reagan wasn’t available. I have heard that Ms. O'Donnell has a checkered past when it comes to money matters. Inasmuch as she’s never stiffed me, I really don’t care. When it comes to financial shenanigans, she’s a mere piker compared to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barack Obama. She only loused up her own credit rating; those goobers loused up America’s. Her record does suggest that if she loses in the general election, she might land the gig as treasury secretary.

Those of you who might be surprised that I’d support someone with questionable character should get over it. When it comes to my friends and associates, I’m quite concerned with such matters; when it comes to politics, my concern is with how the candidate will vote once elected.

I found it rather astonishing that after her primary victory, Karl Rove dumped all over Ms. O'Donnell. It seems to me that if Mr. Rove regarded the Delaware election as so important, he should have gone there and campaigned for Mr. Castle. To wait until after the votes were counted to attack the duly elected Republican candidate strikes me as inexplicable, not to mention reprehensible. My theory is that when it comes to recognizing the power of the Tea Party movement, the only folks who are more disturbed than the Democrats are those former Republican king makers who cower at the thought they might be losing power and influence to the amateurs.

After Bill Maher ran a segment from one of his 1999 “Politically Incorrect” shows, on which young Ms. O'Donnell admitted she had once dated a kid who was into witchcraft, she was asked about her involvement with the occult. I thought her response was spot-on and funny, to boot. She pointed out she had been in high school at the time, and suggested that most people did stupid stuff in their teens. Then she added that if she were really into witchcraft, Karl Rove would probably be supporting her.

It strikes me that Rove, who enjoys being referred to as The Architect because he helped George Bush win two elections, can hardly claim to possess impeccable conservative credentials. For not only did Bush set Obama a bad example when it came to squandering tax dollars, but he and The Architect helped pave the way for Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008.

That reminds me that Obama and his cronies keep referring to “the last decade” in their sorry attempt to blame the Republicans for the present state of the nation. The truth, however, is that the GOP only ran things for the first six of those 10 years. Once the liberals took control of Congress in 2006, it was Dodd, Frank and Obama, along with their good friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who brought about the housing meltdown and the ensuing financial collapse. Since 2008, it’s been the Obama administration that has sent the national deficit soaring through the stratosphere.

Speaking of the silly season, it would be difficult to imagine anything goofier than giving Jew-hater Helen Thomas a journalism award, but that is exactly what the folks at the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have decided to do. It’s not often that an award tells you as much about those bestowing it as those receiving it. In fact, the only comparable occasions that spring to mind were when the Motion Picture Academy gave Oscars to Al Gore and Michael Moore; when the Norwegians gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama; and when an L.A. jury presented O.J. Simpson with a Not Guilty verdict.

Finally, though, for sheer zaniness, nothing quite compares to Jimmy Carter telling Leslie Stahl on “60 Minutes” that he had a successful administration, and only hopes that Barack Obama has an equally successful one.

Well, frankly, the way it’s been going so far these past two years, I guess I hope so, too.