Editorial Blog


Dec. 19, 2002-Jan. 16, 2003
By JEFF RUSHING, Webmaster


    The most outrageous comment of the week belongs to the Boston Globe's Charles Pierce, praising Ted Kennedy's "tireless work as a legislator" by noting: “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”
      How sweet. Too bad Kopechne drowned when Kennedy plowed into Chappaquiddick in a drunken stupor in 1969. Yes, indeed, "if she had lived."
Posted 01/15/03, 6:36 a.m.

    If Jimmy Carter had any guts when he was handed the Nobel Peace Prize last year, he would have aped Teddy Roosevelt, who said this when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910:
      "Peace is generally good in itself, but is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness, and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy."
Posted 01/15/03, 6:30 a.m.

    Sheryl Crow, wearing a T-shirt that said, "War is not the answer," spoke against the upcoming war with Iraq while accepting an American Music Award on Monday: "I just think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."
      As Jonah Goldberg posted on National Review Online, in pure sarcastic joy: "MINUTES FROM FDR'S CABINET MEETING - Gentlemen, on the one hand we have Pearl Harbor in smoldering ruins, thousands of dead Americans. In Europe, we have a bloodthirsty tyrant seeking to rule the whole of the continent and murder millions. And on the other hand we face the risk of profound Karmic retribution for going to war. I ask you men, what shall we do?"
      Andrew Stuttaford, also on NRO, had fun, too: "Newly discovered historical documents reveal that General Eisenhower considered postponing the D-Day landings owing to fears of "karmic retribution." Monty was just worried about the weather."
      George Orwell wrote, in 1942, that: "Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'''
      Forget stuffy Orwell, though, how about an American icon, John Wayne, in his Oscar-winning performance in True Grit: "Well, a gun that's unloaded and cocked ain't good for nothin'."
Posted 01/15/03, 6:21 a.m.

    One of the funniest bits last week was Dem. Congressman Charlie Rangel calling for a mandatory military service of all able Americans between 18-26 years old.
      What makes it funny is that so many of the same leftist hippies who burned their draft cards are cheering him on, just to get back at the supposed current "war hawks." Michigan's Rep. John Conyers joined the call, but he was a co-sponsor just last March of a resolution "expressing the sense of Congress that reinstating the military draft or implementing any other form of compulsory military service in the United States would be detrimental to the long-term military interests of the United States, violative of individual liberties protected by the Constitution, and inconsistent with the values underlying a free society as expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
      This is in the belief that only poor minorities serve in the armed forces, one of the greatest falacies championed in the media (we hear this about Vietnam, too, but numbers disprove it there as well - there was no discrepancy in percentage of Americans vs. how many died over there). Back to now, though, it's true that blacks make up 20 percent of enlistees, compared to only 12 percent to 14 percent of the recruit-age population. But, they make up just 15 percent of the combat force. Otherwise, blacks fill 36 percent of support and administration jobs, as well as 27 percent of medical and dental positions. As columnist Kathleen provides, "while it is probably true that some financially underprivileged kids who are not college material do turn to the military, it is not axiomatic that kids in college are always from privileged homes. The Pentagon report shows that 32 percent of recruits are from homes in which the father is a high school graduate compared to 31 percent of the general population for the same age group."
Posted 01/15/03, 6:20 a.m.

    The Left loves the idea that driving an SUV funds terrorism, in the spirt of the anti-drug ads that say the same. Problem is, not everyone uses drugs; everyone does use gas. What that means is that those in the Geo Metros are putting money into the "terrorists'" pockets, too. Nice try, very cute, but utterly meaningless argument, just another attempt at class warfare against those who enjoy driving SUVs. (Yes, that's me)
Posted 01/15/03, 6:11 a.m.

    Critics of Pres. Bush's economic stimulus package constantly bemoan that it will "cost" over $600 billion. Just to put that into perspective of common sense and honesty, when someone says "cost," replace it with "taxpayers will keep" $600 billion, to spend as you please, not as the government would waste.
Posted 01/15/03, 6:10 a.m.

    Yesterday in Oakland, teachers held a "teach-in" to protest the upcoming war with Iraq, bringing in speakers to schools who preached the evils of warfare, never pretending to be objective. Still, it's to be expected on the Left Coast, especially the San Fran/Berkeley area.
      Sadder, though, was this piece by a man who learned the hard way that teaching inner-city public schools is an almost impossible task.
Posted 01/15/03, 6:07 a.m.

    Praise be! The GOP is running the whole show in D.C. All you need to remember about how bad Democratic rule can be: Low-flow toilets. *shudder*
Posted 01/08/03, 6:44 p.m.

    The UN's nuclear agency is warning (again) North Korea to comply with their instructions ... or else!
      Meanwhile, the North Koreans are tossing chickens and cows over their castle at the UN, saying to go away, or they "shall taunt you a second time!"
      The UN, in desperate response, has placed North Korea on double-secret probation.
Posted 01/08/03, 6:43 p.m.

    In praise of clutter. I've got so many strips of paper and clips from newspapers and printed-out online stories that my backpack would look like a trash can to anyone who didn' t understand what I've done.
Posted 01/08/03, 6:40 p.m.

    Saddam is claiming that the weapons inspectors are "spying."
      Uh, well, I certainly hope so! I hope we have several "spies" throughtout Iraq to pinpoint where the dictator is hiding his weapons of mass destruction.
      Oop, Saddam just called. He'd like to thank all the American anti-war protestors for supporting his rule.
Posted 01/08/03, 6:35 p.m.

    Fun time! The joy of a new father:
      One night a wife found her husband standing over their baby's crib. Silently she watched him.
      As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, skepticism.
      Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband.
      "A penny for your thoughts," she said.
      "It's amazing!" he replied. "I just can't see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $59.95"
Posted 01/08/03, 6:33 p.m.

    Tom Das-hole says of President Bush's proposed tax cuts as "affecting the wrong people." With my single-person salary, I'll save about $1,200 a year, so if that makes me rich and "wrong," I'll wear it with pride. To Democrats, anyone who makes more than $35,00 is not longer a "working person," but has "won life's lottery."
      What amazes me is that the media constantly sides with the Dems in their class warfare talk, saying that the poor receive no tax benefits (forgetting to mention that if you don't pay taxes, you don't get a tax cut). What good does it do them? How about providing jobs, by companies getting tax relief and the richer having more money to spend and invest, creating more jobs. Guess that's giving aid to the "wrong people."
      My favorite comment was by a Lefty who claimed that "working people" (I'm not sure how much you make until you don't work anymore) won't benefit, and only the stock market folks would see improvement. Sure, go ahead and say that Americans don't care if the stock market is strong, even while not noticing that most point to that as the mark of health of the economy. This, despite that during the last two years Dems have used a floundering market as their primary illustration of the problems with the American economy. The Dow jumped nearly 178 and the NASDAQ rose 34 on Monday on the news of President Bush's proposal to completely eliminate the tax on dividends, so you decide what is good for your pocketbook.
      Then again, the economy is already on the rise. Growth in at least the first three quarters of last year was 3%, and nothing about the last quarter suggests a dramatic fall-off.
Posted 01/08/03, 6:31 p.m.

    New Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) stopped minutes after a rollover accident Wednesday in Florida that killed a young girl, helping stabilize the survivors until paramedics arrived.
      Not to be outdone, the Left dispatched their favorite constituency to also help. John Edwards, presidential hopeful from North Carolina who made his fortune as a personal-injury trial lawyer, was sent to sue the car manufacturer and make sure Frist didn’t screw up, lest he be charged with malpractice.
Posted 01/06/03, 4:38 a.m.

    Funny that the Left is celebrating 2002 as the Year of the Whistleblower. It’s all find and dandy for them when it involves corporate schmucks and the FBI. Strange that whistleblowing wasn’t as popular when the names were Linda Tripp and Kathleen Willey.
Posted 01/06/03, 4:09 a.m.

    I don’t agree with Pat Buchanan on much these days, but he makes a great point in a column today regarding the politicizing of Gettysburg. The National Park Service doesn’t like that the visitors center and museum focuses on the battle and not on the war’s root causes. The new center promises to "get away from the traditional descriptions of who shot whom, where and into discussions of why they were shooting one another," says Gettysburg Park Superintendent John Latschar.
      Horrified by that? Me, too. It gets worse. Latschar is apparently none too pleased that Southern soldiers might be regarded as heroic : "For the past 100 years, we've been presenting this battlefield as the high watermark of the Confederacy and focusing on the personal valor of the soldiers who fought here."
      Well, fiddle de dee, I can’t believe we’re not allowed to admire the thousands of our ancestors who walked a mile across an open field to fight a losing battle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the South lost (I can’t believe I have to write that, but if I don’t put in a disclaimer then I’ll be branded as someone who wants to reverse course back to 1850), but the battlefield museums are not the places to debate slavery.
      Buchanan notes, “Latschar then visited the Holocaust Museum and was inspired: ‘Our current museum (at Gettysburg) is absolutely abysmal. It tells no story. It's a curator's museum with no rhyme or reason.’ But one visits the Holocaust Museum to learn about the fate of the Jews under Hitler. One does not go there to learn about Dunkirk or D-Day. And Americans who cherish the battlefields of the Civil War -- Vicksburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas -- do not go there to be instructed on the evils of the Confederacy. Moreover, to convert every battlefield into an endless seminar on the evils of slavery and the South is a fine way to turn these sites of national unity into cauldrons of national division.
      “The forums in which to debate these questions are books, editorials, classrooms, columns, seminars, TV shows. But for the Park Service to impose its orthodoxy on these questions and pervert battlefields to indoctrinate visitors in the party line is to dishonor these hallowed grounds.”
Posted 01/06/03, 4:05 a.m.

    Democrats again prove to the world that being clueless is a full time job, looking for a radio host to rival Rush Limbaugh and proposing to start a new cable network with a definite liberal bias.
      As OpinionJournal.com notes: "Liberals find themselves in a tough situation. They no longer control any branch of government, and while they still predominate in journalism, entertainment and academia, these are not necessarily politically effective institutions. The news media must maintain at least an aura of objectivity. (This applies to "fair and balanced" Fox too, and its news coverage is no more biased than the New York Times' or CNN's.) Hollywood and the academy are insulated from any political accountability by great wealth and tenure, respectively; and the likes of Barbra Streisand and Noam Chomsky do more to discredit the liberal cause than all the Rush Limbaughs put together."
Posted 01/06/03, 4:00 a.m.

    In another instance of Lefty wackos perpetrating destruction in the name of environmental extremism, members of Earth Liberation Front set fire to several SUVs at Pennsylvania auto dealership.
      You might remember their handywork. The ELF is thought to be responsible for the 1998 torching of a ski resort in Vail, Colo., an arson that caused $12 million in damage and is considered the most destructive act of eco-terrorism in U.S. history. Last month, the group's Web site said ELF members and cells from the Animal Liberation Front set a Nov. 26 fire at a mink farm in Erie. The fire destroyed a barn, but no animals or people were harmed. The group also claimed responsibility for an Aug. 11 fire at an unoccupied forest research station near Warren and the torching in March of a construction crane at a bridge work site in Erie.
Posted 01/06/03, 3:50 a.m.

    This week's best Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
    - Driving to work today, I noticed no one resolved to be a better driver.
    - No. 1 person you'd never want cloned: James Carville.
    - Illegal immigrants have become "undocumented citizens." Let's start calling terrorists "non-peaceful lobbyists" so their sensitivities are respected as well.
    - Ah, today is the first day of 2003. That means two weeks of screwing up the date on checks.
    - Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.
    - It takes longer to peel off all the security stickers from a new DVD than it does to watch the movie.
    - It's hard to feel fit as a fiddle when you're shaped like a cello.
Posted 01/04/03, 5:45 a.m.

    It doesn't matter if the Raelien cult nuts have cloned humans or not; there are actual scientists based in reality who are trying to do so as well. Thus, the first thing Republicans should do when Congress convenes this month is to ban human cloning. I don't mean cell cloning, I mean the creation of a person. It's entirely unnecessary for procreation and will only be a negative for humanity, no matter your religious beliefs. This may be cliché, but I have to reiterate: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Posted 01/04/03, 5:44 a.m.

    "Religion of peace" update:
      -- On Dec. 28 in Yemen, three American - Southern Baptist - missionaries were murdered in the hospital where they served by a member of Islamic Jihad. He shot them for being Christians, plain and simple. As Little Green Footballs wryly noted in an aside, Patty Murray said that "building hospitals and day care centers was supposed to make them love us..."
      -- A French businesswoman in Dubai was gang-raped by three men who offered her a ride home from a nightclub, and when she reported the crime immediately to the police, they confiscated her French passport and arrested her — for adultery under shari'a law.
      -- Massoud Mahlouf Elon, a 70-year old Israeli, was found dead in his burned car, killed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the Arab village of Tubas where he often traveled to hand out clothes to needy children.
      -- Blogger Josh Kraushaar points out a troubling school on our own soil, the Islamic Education Center in Potomac, Maryland. The Alavi Foundation, which funds the school and other local mosques, is controlled by the Iranian government and funds terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Kraushaar plainly notes that, "The school itself is a bastion of anti-American hate. ... A large banner displayed in the school says 'those who struggle against the U.S. will be rewarded by God.'" Naturally, you can't have crazy Islamic leaders speaking out only against the U.S., but anti-Semitism is rampant and the kids are taught that Osama bin Laden isn't really a bad guy (that is, "if" he even was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, not that it was a bad thing, anyway). But you could figure this out, I'm sure. Kraushaar continues, "Where are the genuinely mainstream Islamic groups condemning this hatred being spewed? Over 1,500 students attend this school -- no small number, and I'm guessing they are Muslims from all ethnic backgrounds. When Jerry Falwell says Mohammad was a terrorist, he gets inundated by critics who claim he is fomenting hatred for Islam. So where's the consistency -- why can't these same Muslim "anti-discrimination" groups speak out against something so blatant and occurring in their own backyard?"
      -- A Jordanian man served a mere six months in jail for brutally murdering his teenage daughter, only hours after signing an agreement that he would not harm her. Instead, he took his daughter to a room and began preaching to her to be a good girl, but she reportedly replied: “It is my life. I am free to do what I want.” Because of that, he stabbed her 25 times, and then went out and told his family he had killed her. The Jordanian "court" gave the father a light sentence for what it called a "fit of rage" and because of the victim's “dangerous and unlawful actions.” (She was missing for three weeks - but if she had run away from home would you have blamed her?! Sure would have saved her life.)
      -- A Toronto mosque emailed followers on Christmas Day warning that saying "Merry Christmas" to non-Muslims "is like congratulating someone for drinking wine, or murdering someone or having illicit sexual relations and so on." Whoever wishes someone a Merry Christmas, it goes on to say, "exposes himself to the wrath and anger of Allaah." I guess by this reasoning, I don't have to accommodate Muslims during Ramadan, or Jews during Hanukkah, or atheists during ... well, every day that isn't a religious holiday. Problem is, that doesn't bother me. You see, some of us in other faiths tolerate other beliefs better than others.
Posted 01/04/03, 5:43 a.m.

    Another example of intolerance of dissenting views on Islam this week, as a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat was suspended for a private e-mail criticizing Arab nations for their stances on Israel.
Among the supposedly outrageous comments by political writer and columnist Bill Cotterell is this extreme view: "Except for Jordan and Egypt, no Arab nation has a peace treaty with Israel. They've had 54 years to get over it. They choose not to."
But of course! That's terrible! If it weren't the truth, he'd have been fired, I'm sure. I have a feeling that what the Arab groups really despised was this: "I don't give a damn if Israel kills a few in collateral damage while defending itself. So be it."
Guess I wouldn't last long if I worked at the paper, because the same could be said of the U.S. in regards to military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. No, what these groups protest, as well as those who rally under the banner of political correctness, is any negative comment about the worldwide spread of violence in the name of Islam.
Posted 01/04/03, 5:43 a.m.

    You no doubt grew tired of the Lott fracas over two weeks. But one wonders, why isn’t there a Patty Murray brouhaha in the national press? Don’t know what I’m talking about?
      Last Wednesday, at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Wash., the Washington senator wanted to talk about why Osama bin Laden is "so popular around the world?" She asked rhetorically, "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?"
      Murray - a Democrat who apparently agreed that Mussolini was a great leader for making the trains run on time (never mind that pesky brutal-fascist thing) - continued that bin Laden has been "out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that."
      Outraged yet? You should be. As Roger Hedgecock, filling in for Rush Limbaugh yesterday, noted, "Osama bin Laden hasn't been building schools and health-care facilities and infrastructure and roads. ... He's been building terrorist training camps. He's been exploding bombs and murdering people. He hasn't been building an infrastructure. ... The only schools that opened up are these madrassas where they teach hatred and killing."
Posted 12/25/02, 12:30 a.m.

    Surfing the web but just can’t find a site that I would like? Then head over to my buddy Steven’s home on the web. Daily updates, cute family, and he is one of a few people who can tolerate me on a regular basis. That’s enough for me!
Posted 12/24/02, 11:10 p.m.

    If you aren’t watching "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," then your life is boring.
Posted 12/24/02, 11:05 p.m.

    The Wall Street Journal editorial staff (at OpinionJournal.com) notes a slight discrepancy in what Democrats say, and what they do (I know, it’s unbelievable. I never would’ve guessed.) :
Rage Against the Machine

"They have a destruction machine, we don't."--Bill Clinton, Dec. 3

"Several days after the Republican victory in the November elections, Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe and others in the party authorized an intensive opposition research report on Frist. 'It was obvious then that he was going to be a national political figure for the party,' says a DNC staffer. 'No one could have anticipated what has just happened, but we're certain there is stuff in his past we'll be able to dig up.' "--The American Prowler, Dec. 24


Posted 12/24/02, 11:00 p.m.

    When you hear sob stories about how Palestinians aren’t celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem this year, just remember why : Because they keep blowing up Israelis, who have smartly decided to keep troops in sensitive areas to prevent more death. But the Israelis aren’t stopping the Palestinians from allowing Christmas decorations. No, the Palestinians are doing it themselves to pretend to be oppressed.
      But as columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell reminds us, the Palestinians are 90% Muslim, and don’t respect Christians or Jews in the first place:
    Whereas the Israelis respect sacred places, the Palestinian Authority does not. Their police have taken over the Temple Mount with the sufferance of the Israeli government that controls it. Against the will of Jews and Christians, who judge it sacred, and of archaeologists, who consider it worthy of careful study, these religious bigots are carting away tons of ancient earth to build a huge mosque for political purposes. They are defiling a sacred and archaeologically invaluable location on a 3,000-year-old site to establish a political claim to the site, and no one is stopping them.
    The desecration is not unprecedented. Think back four years ago, to when the Taliban conspired in the destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. . . .
    Surely you remember last April when Palestinian militants (gunmen) took over Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, booby-trapped its entrance and terrorized 150 worshipers for 39 days while eating the clerics' provisions, quaffing their booze--so much for Allah's blue laws--stealing church valuables such as gold crucifixes and using sacred scriptures for toilet paper (ah, cleanliness). That sort of barbarism is not new.
    Meanwhile, our "friends" the Saudis practice such an intolerant form of Islam (a "relgion of peace," I'm told), that anyone celebrating Christmas in the country has to do so on the hush-hush:
    Expatriate workers hold discreet holiday parties within walled compounds, out of sight of the government's religious police, who guard against offenses to the faith. . . . Some embassies . . . organize gatherings for their citizens during the holiday season, but generally not on Christmas Day to avoid offending Saudi sensibilities. . . .
    In Riyadh, the mere mention of Christmas leads many expatriates to lower their voices and fidget, fearful of unwanted attention or risking their jobs. Just buying a Christmas card requires a whispered journey into a greeting card underworld. (Associated Press)

Posted 12/24/02, 11:00 p.m.

    One of the more humorous whinings we hear from the feminist community is their belief that boys and girls aren't really any different, and it's our influence that determines whether they wear baseball caps or tutus. I would like to say "Pshaw!" to them.
      For instance, this weekend I was at my grandparents' home with family, and especially enjoying time with my two-year-old nephew Gabriel (one month from his third birthday). He likes trucks. He likes Rescue Heroes, with policemen, firemen and their vehicles. He spent a half-hour putting together several Potato Heads with my sister and brother-in-law, then laid them all on the floor and ran them over with his car carrier. I did not teach him that, neither did his dad. Gabriel is a boy, he likes to crash into things and make cool vroom! sounds. Sure, some girls will do this, too, but I'm willing to bet that most would be rather upset if Gabriel ran over their dolls with his trucks. He would take joy in that. So poo on you, radical feminists, and get a grip on reality that the differences in sexes are joyous and begin at birth, not just because boys wear blue hats and girls wear pink.
Posted 12/24/02, 4:55 a.m.

    Now that the Lott fiasco is over, Democrats are joyously adapting their new litmus test for GOP leaders. They're pouring over every comment new Majority Leader Bill Frist has ever said, looking for anything that might be interpreted as racially insensitive.
      For example, when running for office in 1994, Frist said incumbent Democrat Jim Sasser was "sending Tennessee money to Washington, to Marion Barry. . . . While I've been transplanting lungs and hearts to heal Tennesseeans, Jim Sasser has been transplanting Tennesseeans' wallets to Washington, home of Marion Barry." For those who forgot, Marion Barry was mayor of the capital from 1979 through 1990 and again from 1995 through 1999.
      What Democrats are doing (from bloggers to The New York Times) is interpreting this as a slam against Barry for being black. What they seem to ignore is that Frist was slamming Barry for being corrupt, drug-using and a criminal who did time in the slammer.
      What we have hear is another instance of the Left saying that you can never say anything bad about anyone who is black, female, homosexual, etc., even if they're bad people, because it automatically means you're a bigot. Tell me again which party abuses the race card as a major political weapon?
Posted 12/23/02, 11:45 p.m.

    The best idea I've heard yet for use of the World Trade Center site is to build a new baseball stadium for the Yankees, who have been toying with the idea of moving out of the Bronx. I don't even care if Alec Baldwin thinks it's a great idea, I still like it! What better use than a beautiful park representing the American pastime, and there would be plenty of room for memorials and appropriate monuments.
      I also like the idea proposed by a Berlin architect, that of angling a monument so that the rising sun every Sept. 11 would hit it just right, with a magnificent glow.
Posted 12/23/02, 3:15 a.m.

    This week's best Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
    - Is Wolf Blitzer a CNN personality or one of Santa's reindeer?
    - To the person who tried to post the lyrics of Eminem's rap song "Lose Yourself" on the Internet: Em says that he's a "prima donna," not that he's "pre-Madonna."
    - A woman's four favorite animals: A mink in the closet, a Jaguar in the garage, a tiger in the bedroom and a jackass who'll pay for it all.
    - Being a senator who is racist is repugnant, but not a crime. Being a president who lies under oath to Congress, by extension to his electorate, is both repugnant and a crime.
    - My son asked me why when people get married they call her your awful wedded wife.
    - If people from Charlotte are called Charlottans, then people from Maine should be called Mainiacs.
    - People from Baltimore must be Baltimorons.
    - Always smoke the same brand of cigarettes. At least then, your family will know who to sue after you die.
    - Delta, if you limit passengers to one carry-on and a briefcase, why do half the folks boarding your aircraft look like Sherpas heading up Everest?
    - If we're learning one thing from this Lott flap, it's that only Democrat apologies count.
    - I've tried to watch "The Osbournes," but between the fast talking, the English accents and the bleeping out of every other word, I can't understand a *!+"#%* thing they say.
Posted 12/23/02, 3:08 a.m.

    You’ve no doubt read many columns and letters in the paper that accuse every Republican of being a racist. In response is a good letter from Bob Chamberland in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week after Cynthia Tucker did just that:
"Claims are enough to provoke laughter Cynthia Tucker never ceases to amuse me. The GOP full of bigots? It's obvious she is insinuating that all Republicans (elected and voters) are racists. How open-minded of her. But that's about as fair as me saying that all Democrats love to kill unborn babies, raise taxes, condone adultery, call anyone other than themselves racists, assume that blacks aren't smart enough to compete without racial quotas, refer to blacks who succeed as Uncle Toms and --- well, I better stop there. I'm obviously a ranting racist. Ms. Tucker, please, please don't ever stop writing. You really don't anger as many people as you think. You are quite the entertainer."
Posted 12/23/02, 2:30 a.m.

    Sean Penn, known in the States for marrying Madonna and punching photographers, visited Iraq in protest of the upcoming ouster of Saddam as dictator of the country. While there, he played the part of "Useful Idiot" (Lenin's term for Western liberals who excused his brutal regime) and displayed his ample mindpower with this gem:
      "Because of the technology and the heightened desperation of the world today, I think it's very possible that we are facing the first century that will complete itself without mankind--and that's not the future that I want for my children, or for their children."
      After leaving the country, the Iraq Daily reported Penn said he confirmed that Saddam didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. Penn’s lackeys howled in protest that “they are twisting his words.”
      UnBEElievable! Who’d have thunk such a thing could happen to poor old Sean on his goodwill tour?
      Maybe Penn should have read an interview with CNN's Eason Jordan, talking about the HBO movie Live from Baghdad. Jordan spoke about the inability to report from within Iraq, because of the "ruthless regime that will stop at nothing to try to maintain its hold on power. A regime that has taken hostages in the past. A regime that has hung journalists from lampposts. ... A regime that forces foreign journalists to work from an Iraqi government ministry, the Ministry of Information." Hmmm, I wonder if the Iraq Daily checked with the Ministry before releasing Penn's "statement?"
      Not to be outdone, Jane Fonda was visiting Palestinians in the hospital. Of course, it’s possible that they’re in the hospital because of the brutality of their own ‘government.’ Seems that Arafat’s Fatah group is imposing Sharia (Islamic law – very harsh), and amputating the limbs of people caught stealing and their accomplices.
Posted 12/23/02, 2:15 a.m.



Jeff's Editorial Page   | Column Archives   |   Home