Be the Hammer or Be the Nail

You've got to hand it to the unprincipled and shameless Democrats. And that's exactly what the unprincipled and rudderless Senate Republicans did this week. Ignoring the simple arithmetic of their party's majority, seven dwarves from the Party of Lincoln & Reagan whistled while they worked with a like number of pygmies from the Party of Marx & Springer to hand "we, the people" a senseless defeat in the fight against judicial activism. Who are these Chirac Republicans and why should we remember their treachery? Led by narcissist John McCain, the pack of poodles includes limp Lindsey Graham, Lincoln Chafee (the senator from a state the size of Akron), the senile John Warner, some guy with thick glasses named DeWine and the two chowderheads from New England, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. Remember their names the next time you see any of them on a ballot or the next time you receive a call for a political contribution. They betrayed the hard work, hard-earned money and most of America's voters who handed the Republicans the keys to the kingdom. They traded that trust for some fleeting facetime with the perky Katie Couric and a quick chorus of Kumbaya around the campfire with the liars on the left. It's taken only a few days for the empty promise of their conspiracy to be exposed. The dumb deal is already coming unglued and the only thing they have to show for it is the answer to Democrat icon Rodney King's question: "Can't we all just get along?" Quite simply: no, we can't. But then, most of us knew that a long time ago..... The last seven nails in the doctor's coffin. This week's Senate stupidity brought an end to Senate Majority Eunuch Bill Frist's presidential fantasy. The patrician poof from Tennessee may have the brains to repair a human heart, but America has seen he doesn't have the stomach or the stones to go bareknuckle with even the lamest of lightweights like Mike DeWine and Susan Collins. Does anyone really think Frist is the guy we need in the ring going toe-to-toe with Kim Jong Il in a post-9/11 world?.... Prozac or Viagra? George Voinovich may need Dr. Frist to prescribe bunches of both. As if we needed any more proof that Ohio elects bad senators, the candyass from Cleveland came unhinged at the John Bolton confirmation hearings this week. Voinovich blubbered shamelessly that the US needs to send a more civil sissy to represent us at the UN so his grandchildren will be safer. Huh? It's probably good that George was busy bawling at the Bolton hearings or he would likely have been in McCain's office waving his white flag at the odious Harry Reid instead of at the already-marginalized UN crime boss Kofi Annan..... Cockroaches in the House? Who better to fight them than a trained and experienced professional? Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, House Majority Leader and professional pest exterminator from Houston, is driving the loony left to distraction with his swagger, his straight talk and his core conservative principles. On the issues, he's right more often than he's wrong.... but that's not why the Deaniacs despise DeLay. The libs really hate (and fear) him because he's an effective leader. They want DeLay gone, but the more they scream for his scalp, the more popular he gets back home and across the country. While Senator Frist was attending prestigious universities learning to heal the sick, Rep. DeLay was preparing himself for the real work in Washington D.C. He came to town knowing how to identify and eliminate all manner of pest problems. Once he's handled the cockroaches in the House, maybe the good people of Texas will send him over to the Senate.

Some Stuff Just Won't Flush

I prefer my news on single-ply, scented rolls. NEWSWEAK "regrets" that 17 people were killed and scores injured as a result of a fiction reported by the ragazine's Michael Isikoff and John Barry. We all remember Isikoff as the guy who spiked the true story of Monica Lewinsky's flute solo in the Oval Office (Matt Drudge eventually broke that one). Yet he couldn't wait to spill ink and blood with a poorly-sourced and unsubstantiated story of a Muslim holy book being flushed down a toilet by guards at the Guantanomo Bay detention facility. The story was incredible on its face. Flush a bible down a toilet? Anyone who has ever tried to properly dispose of a Michael Isikoff story can tell you that an even-heftier Quran would just clog the can and make a mess of the bathroom floor. The only undisputed, though largely ignored, truth of the story is that captured terrorists at Gitmo enjoy amenities such as modern plumbing they didn't have at home in the cave. The article was so far off (and its consequences so serious) that it's difficult to dismiss as simply shoddy reporting. Now is a good time to examine the agendas of writers who abuse the power of the press. What would drive journalists to incite anti-American fervor and undermine our national interests? Why would they endanger even more of our soldiers and jeopardize the billions we've invested in Middle East freedom?.... We have a winner! If you guessed that Isikoff and Barry are motivated Bush-haters willing to trash U.S. foreign policy and security in order to damage Dubya, you have The University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy to thank for some proof. They found that journalists surveyed picked Democrat John Kerry over George Bush in the 2004 election by a margin of over two to one (my own guess would have been 5 or 6 to 1). Among the UConn poll's conclusions: 70 percent of journalists say the media does a good or excellent job when it comes to accuracy, while just 40 percent of the public agrees. Significantly, 60 percent of the public believes the media is biased in reporting the news. Of the broadcast and print journalists surveyed, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by three to one. There's more, but you get the idea.... No apologies necessary (or legal action possible). The smartest woman in America, (no, not Hillary Clinton) Condoleeza Rice, responded to the Isikof-induced Muslim hysteria with a hollow promise to punish the perps who qlogged the qommode with the Quran. Good luck, Madame Secretary. Thanks to the ACLU and an activist liberal judiciary, anyone in America is free to flame a flag, crap on a crucifix or just plain slime the symbols and sensibilities of anyone they choose without consequence. You couldnt touch 'em even if it did happen, Condi. I'm not saying it's right... I'm just saying that's the way it is. And if you Muslims out there don't believe me, you should call a lawyer and a plumber. They'll both cost about the same. The lawyer will tell you I'm right. The plumber will help you find your book.

You Can't Fool Me

Now, it seems he was neither "Home" nor "Alone" Michael Jackson's high-priced legal team put 90's incorrigible-but-cute kid Macaulay Culkin on the stand this week to testify that, despite sleeping together on any number of occasions, the boy Culkin was never buggered, boned, bopped or in any way boinked by the then-33-year-old King of Pop. Macaulay's testimony was revealing on several levels. First, it's obvious Michael's best legal defense is that the Gloved One didn't "check the oil" of EVERY boy he slept with at Neverland. Second, we now know that the 24-year-old Culkin doesn't want his flat-lined career unplugged by the admission that he was not only punked by a weirdo when he was ten... but that his folks kept sending him back for more. Let's face it, reporting on this trial must be like spending six months inside a Bob Evans sausage plant. Watching the process is enough to make you sick. But you also know that, regardless of the stink and the mess, there are always going to be people out there eager to gobble your product by the linear foot. Michael Jackson should be imprisoned for the things he's done to kids and for the threat he represents to others. But, at this point, I'd almost be satisfied if he would just move to France where he can do no more harm.... Religion of Peace Alert!!! According to the AP, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is concerned that internet traffic and radio broadcasts are fueling an atmosphere of hate and increased discrimination aimed at Muslims in America. CAIR claims that "whenever there is a beheading or act of terrorism that involves Muslims" (have there been any other kind?), there is a relative rise in crime against Muslims in America. Essentially, CAIR says my Dell and Dad's Bose are responsible for Muslim hardship. Think about it. That's like blaming the fork because Rosie O'Donnell is fat. Muslim leaders would better serve their people by condemning-not-condoning murder, mopping their bloody mosques and learning how to live in the 21st century.... Happy 60th VE Day, Europe (but not you, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia). This week, head Soviet apologist Vladimir Putin put on his old KGB hat and claimed the Red Army was singularly responsible for the defeat of Hitler's Germany and the liberation of Europe in May of 1945. One can only imagine the appreciation and joy felt by 25,000 "liberated" Poles as they were slaughtered and buried in the Katyn Forest by Joe Stalin's army. President Bush, meanwhile, rightly reminded the rest of the world of something ten countries will never forget: At Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill condemned millions of people to generations of communist bondage by cutting a cowardly deal with the treacherous Stalin. The lesson we should take from the Yalta blunder? Instead of fueling the ambitions of a mass murderer, we should have given George Patton more gas, more ammo... and a map to Moscow.

Knowledge is Good

If you can read this, thank a teacher. May 3 is National Teacher Day. But that's only in 2005. Actually, the official day is the Tuesday of the first full week of May. (Leave it to the NEA to complicate it.) Be that as it may, it's as good a time as any to remember and appreciate the great teachers in your life. Everybody's had at least a few; and the fortunate have had many more. Excellent teachers leave legacies that outlive them by generations. They quietly work long hours and often dig deep into their own pockets to make lessons richer for their students. Our best should be recognized and rewarded well-beyond current levels. And the bad ones should be thrown under a big yellow bus to make way for another good one (but that's an essay for another day). For now, let's appreciate the best we've had for all the qualities that made them rise above the rest. For me, it was a tough call, but what the heck. Thank you, Mrs. Shutler, wherever you are.... If you can read this and it's in English, thank a soldier. This past weekend I had the privilege of meeting a young man who was home from his third tour of Afghanistan as a special ops soldier. He is a 26 year old college graduate capable of killing anyone anywhere in a dark room without making a sound or leaving a mark. Talk about some good teachers! He is focused, capable, articulate and extremely positive about the dangerous work over there. In fact, the only fear this soldier expressed in a long conversation about Afghanistan and the Taliban was at the mere thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency in '08. Tom Brokaw can carp all he wants about the greatness of previous generations. I sleep like a baby knowing we have many thousands of young people like the one above who serve by choice with such a high level of professionalism. C'mon, Osama, take a little peek out of that cave.... If you didn't go to Kent State, thank your guidance counselor. With the 35th anniversary of the Kent State shootings tomorrow, we can all look forward to an ample dose of sappy nostalgia and wheezing rage from the never-left-the-sixties crowd. Actually (and fortunately for many of us) some of them never left the Kent State campus. They are comfortably suckling the public teat as tenured professors and university administrators, and they remain, even today, intoxicated by those heady days of the anti-war movement. These flannel-wrapped fossils lament the lack of student activism on today's campus and whine that few students are eager to pay tuition dollars to study the glory days of the counter-culture . They are as angry as old people can get, and with every passing year they lose relevance at the same rate as the Kent State tragedy itself. The final chapter of their sad saga is all but written. After whole careers spent fanning embers that have long gone cold... there are few students anywhere that will list them as teachers-to-appreciate today or ever.