The
writer Rafael Sabatini once described a character as being "born
with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." This
quotation has become my personal mantra.
"Just
keep repeating it, Barbara, and your head won't explode," I tell
myself.
Scott
Brown has just been sworn in as our U.S. senator and already he a.)
is being urged to run for president in 2012, b.) has inspired a new
action doll and c.) was being criticized across the political
spectrum before he cast his first vote.
I
enjoyed his ABC "This Week" interview with Barbara Walters last
Sunday. Brown handled the mostly silly questions well. Best moment:
When she said that he give a "yes or no" response, he responded with
just one word as asked. Has any politician ever done that before?
The
interview was followed by the usual roundtable, featuring George
Will, Paul Krugman, Arianna Huffington and a surprise guest, Fox
News president Roger Ailes. Krugman, the New York Times columnist
still looking sick over the result of the Massachusetts election,
suggested that we would all vote more intelligently if we'd just
read the Times.
Let's
watch TV instead. Arianna had apparently been longing for a chance
to publicly chide Ailes for keeping Glenn Beck on the air: "Aren't
you concerned about the language he is using, inciting the American
people?"
Ailes
was ready for her, noting that in the Huffington blog, "You wrote
that I have a face like a fist, that I was essentially a malignant
tumor."
Game,
set, match to Fox, again.
I'm not
a big Glenn Beck fan, but liberals have been accusing my political
friends of being ignorant racists, fascists, haters and greedy
capitalists for decades, so if Beck gets in a few licks in their
direction, good for him.
Some of
us rightists sometimes misuse the word "socialist," but "socialist
vs. fascist" can be debated using a dictionary. Leftists throw out
vague charges at anyone who questions their right to rule.
The most
childish insult this year is to call someone a "teabagger,"
referring to Americans who have joined the broad, anti-establishment
Tea Party movement. I've been told that the word is obscene, but I
don't know why and don't want to know. There's the political arena,
and then there's the fourth-grade playground. Grow up, liberals.
When I
started in political activism, the favored liberal insult word was
"Birchers." The John Birch Society supported traditional
conservative causes, but its founder, Robert Welch, went too far
when he accused Dwight D. Eisenhower of being a communist agent.
Liberals pounced on this as a weapon to use against more rational
conservatives.
The
great conservative/libertarian senator, Barry Goldwater, was called
a Bircher when he ran for president in 1964, even though he had no
connection with the group.
A
gentlemanly Massachusetts Republican named Ray Shamie was
inaccurately called a Bircher by John Kerry when they ran against
each other for U.S. Senate in 1984. More recently, this past
December, the ultra-liberal Daily Kos wrote about "the Tea Baggers,
who, in fact, have been encouraged by the JBS (John Birch Society)."
I didn't know the JBS was still around.
Never
mind, it's being supplanted. This year, the favorite insult of the
left, though similar, is not "Bircher" but "birther."
Memo to
presidential candidates: After the conventions, when professional
astrologers ask for information so they can look at your planetary
chart and the date of the election to make their predictions, give
them the damn birth certificate!
Presidential finalists have always given their date and time of
birth to astrology columnists who want to publish the charts. In the
summer of 2008, the Obama campaign refused. John McCain's
information was available because of questions that arose when he
had run for president previously; it was determined that because he
was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone, he filled the
constitutional requirement of being a "natural-born citizen."
When the
Obama birth certificate wasn't forthcoming, it was natural in light
of his partly African parentage to ask if Obama was born in the
United States. His campaign could have ended the inquiry by simply
cooperating with writers who were trying to make a living. Instead,
it stalled until the question grew legs.
Some
citizens understandably doubted that the 2008 Obama-worshipping
media were really looking into the issue. If I were Obama I'd have
framed the certificate and carried it around with me, eventually
hanging it in the Oval Office as a conversation piece. But he
didn't.
Regardless, anti-Obama activists who dwell on this issue aren't
doing themselves and their cause any favor. Face it, folks: Even if
it were determined that Obama wasn't born on U.S. soil, his election
would never be invalidated.
The U.S.
Supreme Court would find a way to interpret "natural-born citizen"
that would keep him in office. I'm no constitutional expert, but
I'll bet our founding fathers put that language in there to prevent
British-born Tories from running for president and dragging us back
to the hated monarchy.
Liberals
who despise the Tea Party revolution, who fear the fresh, energetic
candidates who are challenging incumbents this year, and who see
their long-awaited agenda fading, are reacting with playground
name-calling and unconvincing indignation. Their world is mad, and
it's our role to laugh at them.