Tarlowe's Notes

I drove past the anti-Israel rally at Nichols Fountain on New Year's Day, and I can't tell you how inspiring it was to see the assembled throngs, with so many waving Palestinian flags and carrying signs condemning Israel's unwarranted and terroristic war on neighboring Gaza.

In addition to all the signs demanding that Israel cease its unprovoked attacks on innocent civilians, there were many urging an end to U.S. support of the evil, murderous Israelis who, in their unremitting belligerence, refuse to allow the poor people of Gaza to simply go about their lives in peaceful coexistence.

The impressive turnout reminded me of all the marches and rallies we've seen since 9/11, in which so many American Muslims took to the streets and raised their voices in condemnation and repudiation of terrorism.

It was also inspiring to see, among all the smiling Muslim men and so many stunningly gorgeous women in headscarves, so many apparently non-Muslim Americans eager to stand in solidarity against Israel; they were no doubt moved to attend the rally by their sympathy for their Arab brethren and by admiration for the love of peace and tolerance that are so characteristic of Islam and its practitioners.

And I was impressed by the courage of the demonstrators, who gathered undaunted by the knowledge that at any moment some wild-eyed, rampaging Israeli-supporting zealot might use a bomb or a gun to inflict wholesale, indiscriminate carnage on the crowd. Of course, such an act would be one of abominable cowardice, and therefore unthinkable to the brave disciples of Allah.

To understand the war in Gaza and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a military standpoint, one must grasp the basic difference in the tactics employed by each side.

And, while we're on the subject, Israel has said that it will consider a truce if there is a "meaningful commitment from Hamas" to cease its rocket attacks on Israel.

I think that's a great idea! And, while they're getting that meaningful commitment from Hamas, why not also get a meaningful commitment from Barney Frank to start being attracted to women? Heck, they might as well get a meaningful commitment from Bill Clinton to practice truthfulness and marital fidelity!

I knew I wouldn't be able to endure watching all of CBS's fawning Obama-thon on

Sunday night's 60 Minutes without feeling sick to my stomach, but I did tune in just long enough to catch The Anointed One being asked the following question:

If I were teaching a class in propaganda I would not have been able to come up with a more textbook example of how to implement the "Big Lie" theory perfected by the propaganda guru of the Third Reich, Dr. Goebbels: state the lie straight-faced and boldly, even brazenly, as if it were the truth; then just keep repeating the lie until it becomes the truth.

Suddenly Sarah Palin, in politics since 1992, who served two terms on the city council and two terms as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska before being elected Governor, becomes "less-experienced" than a "community organizer" elected to his state's senate in 1996 for one term and to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for a term he cannot complete.

But I guess it doesn't matter, now that Obama has achieved his "landslide" victory. That's another Big Lie about Obama: suddenly, winning by 7.2% of the popular vote constitutes a "landslide".

"History is written by the victors". That's a quote often attributed to Dr. Goebbels's colleague in Nazi infamy, Herman Goering, but also to various others, including Sir Winston Churchill and the French author and journalist (and advocate of collaboration with the Nazis) Robert Brasillach (who said it in French: "L’histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs").

Whoever said it, it is certainly true. And while Barack Obama's victory has certainly made history, CBS and the mainstream media, who were instrumental in that victory, are now helping write their version of it.

As some of you may know, I am an inveterate punster. In fact, when I visited England, my reputation as a punster had preceded me, and my hosts issued a challenge: "We've heard you claim to be able to make a pun on any subject", they said. "Let's hear a pun on Her Majesty, the Queen!"

Well, with that in mind, let me share this story that an old acquaintance sent me on Christmas morning:

The New York Times has just apologized for publishing a Letter to the Editor that purported to be from the Mayor of Paris, France that turned out to be a fake, a phony and a fraud.

It seems that the venerable "Grey Lady" didn't adequately verify the authenticity of the letter, which came to the Times via e-mail. How very embarrassing for them!

I've written a number of Letters to the Editor to both the NYT and to the Kansas City Star (to understand why I no longer bother, keep reading).

In each case, I followed the instructions of including my telephone number, and someone from the newspaper called me to verify that I was who I claimed to be and that I had, indeed, written the letter. A number of them were published. My mom still cherishes the clippings.

I stopped writing to the NYT simply because I stopped reading the paper altogether. When I realized (sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake) that their editorial page had expanded to the entire paper. I also came to realize that I am not the sort of person the paper is being written for. Since I am not a Bush-hater, a Trotskyist or a homosexual, I am not among the sometimes overlapping demographics at which the newspaper is targeted.

Now, I still occasionally read the Kansas City Star, if only because around KC it is so easy to pick up a discarded copy, and I like to read the Local section to check the Irish Sports Page (the Obits), and I read certain columns (like Loony Lewie) and the Letters just to see how brainwashed and numbingly stupid some people can be, and to make sure my blood pressure doesn't drop too low.

But, the last time I wrote a Letter to the Editor, someone from the Star called me three separate times to verify my identity and to authenticate my letter, and then they still edited out my major point and, to add insult to injury, spelled my name wrong! I decided I don't need that kind of aggravation. I will no longer waste my time writing to the Kansas City Star.

But I haven't seen or heard of the Star apologizing for publishing a letter that turned out to be totally bogus. Oh, there's plenty of stuff in the paper that's bogus, but at least not in the Letters section. So I guess that, on that level at least, the Star is still doing a better job than the venerable New York Times. And that, Children, is one of the best examples of "damning with faint praise" that I can presently think of!

The story (and video) of Pres. Bush (Yes, he's still President!) dodging shoes thrown at his head by an Iraqi journalist during a press conference is all over the news ad nauseam.

The footwear-flinging reporter is currently being "held for questioning"; they'll probably find out he's an avid reader of the New York Times and Daily Kos. Meanwhile we're being informed, also ad nauseam, that the act of flinging one's shoes at someone represents, in the culture of Iraq and its region, a supreme insult.

Well, I guess it's a good thing for Pres. Bush (even though he bobbed like Floyd Patterson to avoid the missiles) that folks in that part of the world don't tend to wear very substantial shoes. After all, one consideration in most Iraqis' choice of shoes is that they can be easily removed 5 times a day for prayer.

Not that it would likely happen in, say, Texas, but I'm sure Bush would rather dodge a flying pair of goat-leather sandals or Gucci loafers than a pair of concho-studded Tony Lamas or, even worse, a pair of steel-toed loggers or engineer boots hurled by some cedar-hacker or roughneck.

Anyway, a few other commentators have felt obliged to point out that ("Duh!") hurling just about anything at the person on the stage or podium constitutes an insult; 'true enough, but with one notable exception:

Tom Jones, the Welsh pop singer and heartthrob who was all the rage in the '60s, is making a comeback; his live performances used to be marked by what the British press described as "a knicker-and-hotel-room-key-hurling frenzy of raw sexual tension".

While that's not likely to happen to Pres. Bush, it just might happen to Barack Obama (who is universally loved, especially by women, Right?), so let it be noted that the throwing of bras, panties and room-keys at a man on stage is not an insult, at least not in our culture!

I know this is a rhetorical question, but I'll answer it anyway. No matter how many previous presidents have been known by their initials, Barack Obama is unlike any previous president and is ushering in a whole new age.

So, just as no Christian church (or anyone else really, other than, say, Lenny Bruce or Lord Buckley) refers to Jesus Christ as "JC", Barack Obama will not be referred to by his initials, but only by his full name or a suitable honorific.

Now, when it comes to honorifics, there are several that may be deemed acceptable, including "The Messiah", "The Anointed One", or any others that may be bestowed on Barack Obama or that he may bestow on himself (like "President for Life").

Actually, Barack Obama may come to be referred to using not one but several honorifics , the way His Holiness the Pope is also referred to as The Bishop of Rome, The Vicar of Christ and The Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, or even several together, the way James Brown was always introduced as "The Hardest-Woikin' Man in Show Bidness; Mr. 'Please, Please, Please'; The Godfather of Soul!!"

The spin is in that Barack Obama "distanced himself" from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. And the lackey press, still in thrall to Obama, has already concluded that he is "untainted" by the scandal.

Just in the few hours after Blagojevich's arrest, Obama intimates Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod have scrambled to announce that they had "misspoken" or been "misquoted" in earlier statements that indicated their -- and Obama's -- relationship with Blagojevich.

Rahm Emanuel, in particular, must have been "misquoted" when he told The New Yorker earlier this year that he and Barack Obama were the "chief strategists" for Blagojevich's 2002 campaign and were "responsible for his victory".

I'm sure Barack Obama's endorsement of Blagojevich's 2006 re-election campaign was also a "misquote", even though it was in front of thousands at the Illinois State Fair.

And I'm sure that Obama was just as surprised to learn of Blagojevich's corruption as he was surprised to learn that "just a guy from the neighborhood", his friend William Ayers, had been a radical domestic terrorist.

Among the interesting things coming out about Blagojevich, whose entire career has been dogged by allegations of corruption (including rumors of influence-peddling with Tony Rezko, who was a fundraiser for Blagojevich), is that he apparently once aspired to run for President!

Can you imagine? A corrupt Chicago politician having the audacity to hope he could win the Presidency?

Well, the KC Star and news agencies all over the world are reporting the destructive riots across Greece that supposedly started when cops, who claim they were under attack, shot and killed a teenager. Since then, rioters described as "hooded, black-clad anarchists" have been wreaking havoc, battling police and smashing and torching businesses.

Unlike the recent riots in France, it's tough to tell from the coverage if there's a Muslim component to the rioters (although one can hardly be blamed for wondering). The Greek rioters may indeed be home-grown leftist/anti-capitalist gangs who have been fairly active in Greece since the '70s but who are feeling their oats as they see capitalism reeling; we'll see if a Muslim angle is revealed, even though the mainstream press will, typically, try to conceal or downplay it.

One thing seems to come through, however: even before a full investigation of the original incident, the Greek cops involved are already suspended without pay and facing criminal charges; it sounds as if their government is treating them the way ours has treated Border Patrol Agents Campion and Ramos.

Readers: 'Got one we left out? Send it to Editor@KCNewswatch.com; if we like it we'll add it to the list and credit you by name!

"Hope". "Change". "Yes We Can". "Anything is Possible with Obama". "Obama for Peace". "Obama for a Greener America". "Hope is Greater Than Fear". These were some of the slogans of the Obama campaign.

But the more Obama's agenda is revealed, and the more I hear from those who elected him, the more convinced I am that the following slogans would have been every bit as effective in winning the votes of the very same people:

Don't want a "3rd Term of Bush"? Vote Obama for a 3rd Term of Clinton!

'Had enough of the Bill of Rights, the secret ballot, and all that "patriotism" crap? Vote Obama!

In my previous column [The Mumbai Massacres and Gun Control] I happened to mention New York's Sullivan Law, which places draconian restrictions on who can legally possess and carry a handgun in that state.

I mentioned that politicians and celebrities (notably outspoken Second Amendment opponent -- and colossal hypocrite -- Sen. Charles Schumer) manage to be granted pistol permits, but for the average New York citizen (even a shopkeeper in a crime-prone environment) the same permit is all but unobtainable.

Now comes the story of Plaxico Burress, a NY Giants football player with a multi-million dollar contract but without a NY pistol permit, who entered a nightclub with a handgun tucked into his waistband and accidently shot himself. Even had the gun not discharged, under the Sullivan Law his possession of it would be a felony carrying a penalty of up to 3 1/2 years in prison.

Naturally, everyone is scrambling to find a loophole. Apparently Burress's fans join him in the opinion that he is somehow above the law.

One might wonder just why he needed a handgun, and why it was tucked in his waistband. Generally speaking, unless you are a Mexican cop or TV's Thomas Magnum, carrying a handgun tucked in your waistband is a sign that you are up to no good; if you are carrying it legitimately, it will be in some kind of holster.

Even if you have what you perceive to be a legitimate need to be armed despite your lack of the appropriate paperwork, it would behoove you to make sure the gun is not revealed to anyone until such time as -- God forbid! -- it is actually needed to protect your life or the life of another. It would stand to reason that if you're skirting the law, you try not to draw attention to yourself.

A guy who makes over $100k a week can certainly afford to hire professional bodyguards, who would possess the appropriate paperwork. At the very least, a guy who makes over $100k a week can certainly afford a proper concealment holster.

It sounds as if a class in proper gun-handling, such as is required in most states that license citizens to carry concealed firearms, might have been a prudent investment as well. By the way, in many of those states, including Kansas and Missouri (which honor each other's concealed handgun licenses), it is a violation to carry even a licensed concealed handgun into a drinking establishment (although that does not apply if the establishment is also a restaurant). It's also a violation to display the weapon. Choosing to go armed is not a whim; it requires resolve, awareness and commitment, and it impacts on where you should or shouldn't go.

The story, according to this highly-paid and extremely lucky (lucky the bullet hit him instead of someone else!) "professional athlete" (who is not likely to dazzle anyone with his intelligence), is that the gun slipped from his waistband and "somehow went off". Even if you know zip/zilch/nada about firearms, you should know that guns do not "just go off".

Whenever you hear that excuse, you know that someone is not telling the whole truth and is probably covering for his own stupidity and/or negligence. Among responsible gun owners, there are a number of terms for the person who claims that his gun "just went off", and the kindest of these terms is "moron".

Now, as it happens, the Second Amendment states that "...The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", and I happen to believe that any form of licensing -- from NY's Sullivan Law on down -- violates the "shall not be infringed" portion.

But I also believe that any criminal act committed with a gun should result in the violator actually serving jail time (no loopholes; no plea-bargains; no slaps-on-the-wrist; no probation), and that any history of criminal violence (such as Burress's history of domestic violence) should negate that individual's Second Amendment right.

However, while the laws calling for licensing and registration are on the books, unless one wants to make a test case of it, one might as well strive to be in compliance, and work through legal channels and education to defeat those -- like Schumer -- who would use the registration and licensing laws to disarm the citizenry [see my previous column for the implications of disarming the citizenry].

But, permit or not, this individual, Burress, had/has no business possessing or handling a firearm. In my opinion, he's an immature, overpaid celebrity for whom a gun, like his flashy jewelry and wad of cash, is just a fashion accessory designed to enhance his "street cred". Plaxico Burress may be a hero to those who look up to sports figures, but it seems his own heroes and role models are "gangsta"-types.

We'll see, though, whether he gets the same book thrown at him that you or I would, or if the "powers that be" (who love to pander to celebrity) will agree with Burress's high-priced fixer (Oops! I mean "lawyer") that "he's a talented athlete who shouldn't have his career ruined over a simple mistake" [Excuse me while I throw up].

The massacres in Mumbai were carried out a bit differently from most of the terrorist attacks to which we have, tragically, become accustomed.

Oh, not that the perpetrators were any different. As always, we are assured that the terrorists were radical Islamists who have hijacked the Religion of Peace and who by no means speak for mainstream Islam. As we all know, there is nothing in the Holy Koran or in any of the teachings or preachings of Mohammed that encourages or excuses such treatment of infidels; of course not!

In fact, should anyone dare to suggest that Islam is, at its very core, totally at odds with Judeo-Christian values or with any other creed of good vs. evil on the planet, or dare to suggest that it is a thuggish 7th Century death cult that worships a perverse god who smiles on the slaughter of innocents, that person would be condemned as a hateful, bigoted Islamophobe!

But what made these attacks different was that the terrorists didn't even have to go to the trouble of building and planting bombs; most of the casualties, whether targeted or random, were felled by bullets and grenades. Basically the terrorists opened up with AK-47s and grenades and mowed down unarmed civilians.

Such tactics wouldn't have been nearly as effective in, say, Tel Aviv or, for that matter, in Dallas, or Miami, or any other city where a significant number of citizens routinely go armed. It's not "like shooting fish in a barrel" when the fish are also packing heat. Even though a man armed with only a handgun is still outgunned by a terrorist armed with a rifle, he's hardly a sitting duck. And when even 5% of the population is armed, that changes the whole equation.

But Mumbai isn't like Tel Aviv or Dallas or Miami. Just as armed robbers know that a "No Guns Allowed" sign means "Please Rob Us!", the terrorists knew the chances were slim to none that any pesky armed citizens would put a crimp in their plans. That's because in India, despite its martial traditions, "gun control" is the law of the land, and the concept of armed citizens is all but unknown.

Now, if you think I'm using the terrorist massacres in Mumbai as an excuse to rant about gun control, you are correct.

The Indian government has continued the policies set in place by the British, who were badly stung by the mutiny of their Indian colonial subjects in 1857 and took measures to make sure the people of India could never again rise up in rebellion.

The Indian Arms Act of 1878 disarmed the native population (as well as systematically dismantled India's firearms manufacturing industry) and decreed that no Indian could possess any type of firearm unless certified a "loyal subject of the British Empire".

India became independent in 1947, but the newer laws still restrict civilian gun ownership to the point of making it almost impossible (similar to the manner of New York's Sullivan Law, under which politicians and celebrities manage to obtain gun permits, but the average citizen cannot; more on this below).

Even Mohandas K. ("Mahatma") Gandhi, a man whose name has become synonymous with non-violence and "passive resistance", said,

Although our own Second Amendment (while we still have it!) is intended to guarantee citizens (not "subjects") the right to deter and resist (and if necessary overthrow) tyranny (the same right denied the Indian masses), it has the additional benefit of helping to deter and resist crime and, now, to deter and resist terrorism, especially in those states which have had the wisdom to see that the right to keep and bear arms includes the right to carry a concealed firearm.

So a bunch of jihadists spraying a street corner with gunfire or storming a hotel in, say, Dallas or Miami would find that a good number of civilians were quite capable of shooting back.

But any limitation on that right will impact not only on our ability to deter crime and wanton violence, but will of course negate the prime purpose of the Second Amendment, to keep an oppressive government from turning on its own people.

And we can expect to see renewed efforts, under the "new regime", to re-interpret or otherwise emasculate our right to keep and bear arms. No doubt the masters of propaganda will even tell us that "gun control" is for our own good (just as they will tell us that re-interpreting the First Amendment will promote "fairness"). But it is ultimately only for the good of those in power, who want to stay in power no matter what.

By the way, Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY), the most vociferous advocate of gun control and the "Fairness Doctrine", is among the privileged few to be licensed (under the aforementioned Sullivan Law) to carry a concealed handgun in New York; can you say "elitism and blatant hypocrisy", Boys and Girls? "Chuckie" would like for U.S. citizens to be as defenseless as the folks in India; not him, but the rest of us.

Consider what Vladimir Lenin (the man who coined the phrase "useful idiots" that so aptly describes most liberals) said:

Patrick Henry (he of "Give me Liberty or give me Death!") perhaps said it most succinctly:

Let me wrap this up with a quote that is remarkable not so much for what it says (which is just elementary common sense) but for who said it:

Gandhi wasn't the only person who stood for non-violence but who understood the value and necessity of armed self-defense; the quote above was uttered, in 2001, by the Dalai Lama!

These are off-duty Israeli troops, but they could just as easily be Israeli civilians.

As I'm writing this, Russian warships are steaming into the Caribbean to conduct "joint military exercises" with Venezuelan forces.

Hugo Chavez, let us not forget, is the same Marxist demagogue who heartily endorsed Barack Obama's candidacy and who has recently claimed credit for Obama's victory!

Sarah Palin was pilloried for not being familiar with the term "Bush Doctrine"; does Barack Obama, or even George Bush (let alone an American public that is no longer taught American History) understand (and intend to uphold) the Monroe Doctrine (since 1823 a major tenet of American foreign policy), which declares the U.S. will not tolerate European colonization, interference or meddling in our hemisphere?

This apocalyptic movie, made in 1984 by John Milius, has a (fictional) backstory that has most European nations dropping out of NATO and renouncing their alliance with the U.S., while Cuba and Nicaragua, with Soviet backing, build up their military and take over El Salvador and Honduras.

Then a civil war in Mexico brings that country under the Soviet umbrella, enabling the Soviets and their Latin American clients, after infiltrating saboteurs disguised as illegal immigrants and launching nuclear attacks on Washington D.C., Omaha and Kansas City, to carry out an invasion and occupation of the United States.

Not all Americans resist the invasion and occupation; there are many who collaborate with the enemy. And the occupiers use BATF gun registration files to disarm the populace.

But of course "Red Dawn" is ridiculed by most of the elite media (who are now largely ignoring or downplaying the Russian/Venezuelan war games) as an over-the-top, right-wing paranoid fantasy that could never happen.

It's clear to me that the mainstream media is populated by traitors who are complicit -- no, make that instrumental -- in the insidious, aggressive brainwashing of the American public for the purpose of destroying the United States as we know it. Anyone who still thinks otherwise is either in league with them, just not paying attention, or severely mentally-challenged.

Consider the "re-invention" of William Ayers that is currently under full steam [a little nautical metaphor there!]: Not only is the unrepentant radical domestic terrorist -- I know, that description is becoming a cliché, but what other four (printable) words so aptly describe the man? -- garnering applause on the talk-show circuit, but, as reported by Jack Cashill:

Earlier this week Salon.com´s Washington bureau chief, Walter Shapiro, sat down with terrorist emeritus, Bill Ayers, for a chummy 55-minute conversation.

Shortly into the interview, Shapiro asks a question that took me rather by surprise. Says Shapiro, "Did you follow the right-wing blogger, I believe it was, who was totally convinced that you wrote Barack Obama's books?"

The "right-wing blogger" is, of course, Cashill, who has (as most folks who have been paying attention would know) put forth a most cogent argument that Ayers did, indeed, write and edit substantial portions of Obama's "Dreams From My Father" (one of the first things Cashill found suspicious was the frequent use in that book of the same kind of nautical imagery Ayers had used in his own book; Ayers had spent time at sea; Obama had not).

Reducing Cashill (the author, as most of our readers also know, of at least a half-dozen books) to a "right-wing blogger" and even adding the smug and smarmily-dismissive "I believe it was" is either an example of the reptilian levels to which the Leftist disciples of Dr. Goebbels will stoop, or an award-winning example of the colossal, pathological chutzpah that it takes to pull off this kind of orchestrated campaign to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

The machine the space-station astronauts are using to turn urine into potable water doesn't even compare to the way the mainstream media is turning William Ayers -- of whom I could say the only difference between him and a bucket of excrement is the bucket, and that would be too flattering -- into a hero of the new post-patriotic age that has been ushered in by the election of his protégé, Barack Obama.

The payoff of Ayers's re-invention will be when he is appointed Obama's Secretary of Education. He is, after all, an "educational reformer". America voted for "change" and Oh Boy, are we getting it!

In Rahm Emanuel We Should Trust?
The other day I received an e-mail from my friend Bernie that was intended to reassure me that, because Barack Obama has appointed Rahm Emanuel his Chief-of-Staff, and has other Jews in his inner circle, we Jews needn't be concerned about what Obama's presidency will bring.

The e-mail informed me that Rahm Emanuel's father was born in Jerusalem and served in the Irgun, and that Rahm Emanuel himself "was a civilian volunteer in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War; Emanuel and his wife are members of a 'modern Orthodox congregation', and their kids attend the same Jewish day school that Emanuel attended as a child". The e-mail also pointed out that Emanuel has two brothers, Ezekiel and Ari, one a noted oncologist and bioethicist and the other a gansa macher in Hollywood.

Gevalt! You could shmear yourself in chopped liver and shmaltz and not get any more Jewish than that, Nu?

I've often lamented the irony that, while the preponderance of my fellow American Jews march in lockstep with the Democrats, it is the Republicans (and, frankly, American Christians!) who are more firmly committed to the survival of Israel (which has its own problems with pacifists and appeasers in its government) and to other policies to which Jews should relate.

Why, for example, do so many Jews support Democrat/Liberal efforts to undermine the right of Americans to keep and bear arms? The point of the Second Amendment is to deter government from turning on its own citizens, and who better than Jews should understand that danger?

It's almost as puzzling as the way the preponderance of Black Americans also march in lockstep with a party that has a vested interest in keeping them on its victimhood plantation.

Well, back to the "reassuring" e-mail: it urged me to "pass it along to Jewish friends who may still have fears about whether they can trust a President Obama". I answered it as follows:

Now we don't have to worry about Obama's friendships with anti-Semites like Jeremiah Wright or Rashid Khalidi or "Minister" Farrakhan (or Khalid al-Mansour, or Ali Abunimah; the list goes on and on). And we don't have to worry about him reversing or drastically changing U.S. policy toward Israel, despite his henchman Jesse Jerkson's promise that under Obama we could expect just such a change.

Nor need we worry about Obama's plans to alter the Constitution or "reinterpret" the First and Second Amendments. Nor should we worry about his plans for a "civilian army" (even if he dresses them in brown shirts!); we shouldn't worry about him pinning the blame on Jews for the collapse of Wall St., or about him not regarding Iran's Ahmedinejad as a menace.

We Jews don't have to worry about any of this, because -- Hallelujah! -- Obama has a couple of Jews in his inner circle! And everyone knows that Jewish Liberals are always Jews first, and Liberals second, Right? So they would never support anything that was ultimately bad for Jews or for Israel, Right?

Never mind that Obama and his cadre (Jewish or non-) have all made their bones in the Chicago political machine. And never mind that Saul Alinsky (the Ur-"community organizer" whose fan club includes Hillary Clinton, William Ayers and Michelle Obama, and who wrote "Rules for Radicals", the blueprint for exploiting liberal "causes" to bring down America as we know it) was also Jewish.

How many Jewish collaborators did Hitler have, in government positions and in the concentration camps? Look up "Kapos" and see what their role was in implementing Hitler's "final solution"; or look up how an organization of Jews called "The 13" (the number came from the address of their HQ; they actually numbered in the hundreds and marched in shiny boots and snappy uniforms) aided the Nazis and spied on the Jewish underground in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Even Ferdinand and Isabella appointed Jews to important government positions prior to the Spanish Inquisition; in the end, they too were "purged".

But there's a reason that history like this is no longer being taught: because, now more than ever (as expressed by George Santayana's oft-paraphrased or misquoted reminder), "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

So, because Obama has a few Jews around him, we shouldn't be concerned? Right, and if my bubbeleh had wheels, she'd be a wagon!

The e-mail from my friend Bernie reminded me of two phrases that have been running through my mind ever since the votes were counted and the propaganda promulgated by the mainstream media (and other useful idiots) shifted to "reassuring" all Americans of Obama's humanity and benevolence, and of how his rule will be "centrist", and how all our worries are groundless.

The first is the last line of the old fable about the man who befriends a snake (or a scorpion) and then is surprised when the critter bites (or stings) him: the critter says "Hey, you knew what I was when you picked me up!"

The second is a line from "The Simpsons", and it speaks absolute volumes, and should resonate even with those who have never watched that show. It was spoken by a TV anchorman who thought that Earth was about to be taken over by giant ants; he wasted no time announcing:

"I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves."

Happy Birthday, Devil Dogs!
Today, 10 November 2008, is the 233rd birthday of an elite
organization known affectionately by its members and admirers as "The
Green Machine", "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children", "Jarheads", "Devil
Dogs" and "Leathernecks".

Many Americans (not nearly enough, but still many) feel a swelling of
enormous pride and may even get misty-eyed just thinking about this
organization, its history, its traditions and its creed.

Whether the President-Elect shares the same pride, affection,
respect, admiration and even awe for this organization is, at best,
questionable. Also questionable is for how much longer, under the new
regime, the organization's birthday will continue to be an occasion
of celebration and pride.

There was a time when America was known around the world as "a nation
of riflemen". That is, sadly, no longer true of us as a nation, but
it's still true of Our Marines; all hands, every single Marine, from
infantryman to cook, clerk or computer operator is, first and
foremost, a rifleman. Every Marine knows how to fight. May it ever be
thus.

While we still can, let us thank the U.S. Marines, those who have
served, those who have fallen, and those serving today, for
everything they have done to preserve and protect our precious nation
and its freedoms. And let us thank God for the United States Marine
Corps.

McCain's Concession Speech
Holy Cow! I'm writing this as I listen to John McCain's concession speech, and it just goes on and on and on, doesn't it?

It's a speech that is obviously far too long and far too well-prepared. He must have been prepared for the inevitability of his defeat all along, even as I and others clung desperately to hope and refused to consider defeat. What a disappointment this campaign has been!

And now McCain, unperturbed, will go back to Arizona, as he's told us he would, and his life won't change much. He even thinks America will be in fairly capable hands. He certainly doesn't seem to think, as I do, that our country is now in big trouble and that our lives are just liable to become hellish. But then, to him, the campaign was never really a struggle to save the country (as it was to many of us), was it?

Instead of his now hollow-sounding boilerplate "Americans never give up! We don't hide from history, My Friends, we make history!" (Sheesh, does he ever tire of that riff?), I wish McCain had said to Obama, "Mr. Obama, congratulations and good luck to you. Try not to 'remake America' the way your buddy Mr. Chavez is remaking Venezuela!"; that would have been enough of a concession speech, civil but not cordial.

And to Americans I wish he'd said, "Resist! Resist! Resist, My Friends, the insidious efforts of this man and his cadre of snakes and weasels to slide our nation into Socialism or worse!"

It Can't Happen Here?
Did you encounter long lines at your polling place Tuesday?

If an Obama administration is installed and succeeds in its long-range Marxist goals, we may find ourselves standing on line for bread, meat or milk like folks in Cuba or N. Korea or any other workers' paradise where profit is unpatriotic and the government makes sure all "wealth" is distributed "fairly" (and Stalinist enforcement ensures compliance and punishes ambition). So we might as well get used to it.

Could that possibly happen here, in the United States, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, the Land of Plenty, the Land of the Big PX? Of course not! Don't be silly! Why, that's just a foolish, alarmist scenario!

It's ridiculous to think that it would ever get to that point. Why, even if we were to actually elect a president whose true agenda sought to destroy free enterprise (as well as our other freedoms) in the name of "fairness", well, we'd just vote him out again, just as the people have done in Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia, N. Korea or Zimbabwe, 'Right?

That we would vote away our freedom and prosperity is every bit as ridiculous a notion as, for example, back when some folks envisioned that recognizing "gay rights" would someday lead to homosexuals demanding the right to marry one another and adopt children, or result in society being forced to change its definition of what constitutes "normal" or "deviant".

We all know what a silly, alarmist prediction that was! We all know better than to give credence to alarmist fantasies.

Why worry over nothing? The dystopias of "1984", "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" or "The Shape of Things to Come" will never come to pass. We all know that we would never permit things to go that far!

Barack ~~Hussein~~ Insane Obama
What we are seeing in the Obama campaign, and particularly in Wednesday night's multi-channel TV spectacle, goes beyond what John Baer of the Philadelphia Daily News called "creepy" and "overkill". What we are seeing is the emotion-fueled bandwagon of a cult of personality surrounding and supporting a charismatic but pathological narcissist.

Barack Obama and his legions of fawning followers exhibit all the classic signs of a variety of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) seen all-too-often in politics and known as malignant narcissism or narcissistic sociopathy.

Now, it's hard to bring up narcissism in politics without at least mentioning Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon (and, for that matter, that epitome of a man deeply in love with himself, John Edwards)! But they were mere garden-variety narcissists, not the malignant, pathological type we're talking about here

['Care to read a scholarly piece on political narcissism? Check out the article by Ali Sina at www.faithfreedom.org/obama.html]

The same phenomenon has characterized the rise to power of many a megalomaniacal despot, on the shoulders of a personality cult. Think of the one that gave us the expression "Kool-Aid drinkers": Jim Jones was a charismatic but pathological and malignant narcissist, surrounded by his enablers. But he was hardly the first.

The disorder tends to go hand-in-hand with Leftists who feel a calling to implement their vision of a socialist utopia regardless of how many of their countrymen they have to kill to achieve it.

Cubans at first welcomed, with the same kind of enthusiasm we now see for Barack Obama, the "change" promised by their charismatic revolutionary hero, Fidel Castro; Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power in similar fashion in Iran, and need I mention that Adolf Hitler was also an immensely popular and charismatic but pathological narcissist, who was elected by a populace wracked by financial turmoil, who were in thrall to him, felt elevated by his speeches, and who thought he was their savior?

This is why Obama's disciples are immune to logic, and why no scandal, no revelation about Obama's history, his associations or his agenda will deter them from their rabid support. They are co-dependents, victims of the same disorder. We keep looking for a "Dead Zone" moment in which even his worshippers will suddenly see that this man should not, under any circumstances, be President, but it's not going to happen.

(In "The Dead Zone", a 1983 film based on a Steven King novel and starring Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen played a charismatic candidate for president who, when fired on by a sniper, grabbed an infant from its mother's arms and used it to shield himself. This unconscionable, supremely selfish and pathologically narcissistic act, seen by millions, turned even his supporters against him and doomed his candidacy).

No efforts to change people's minds will be successful in stopping Obama. Our only hope to defeat him is in our sheer numbers. Even though his goons have set the stage for millions of fraudulent votes, those of us who are not in thrall to him, who have not drunk the Kool-Aid, need to turn out, and remind all others like us to turn out, in droves, to outnumber the cultists.

A Timely Reminder of White Guilt
The news story [which is getting a lot of play!] about the 2 "White-supremacist, Neo-Nazi skinheads" who were [allegedly] "plotting to assassinate Barack Obama and other African-Americans" merely proves that this country is still, at its very core, infested with inherent, ingrained racism!

Every white American should rightly feel deep personal shame and guilt over this.

And the best way for white Americans to repudiate and distance themselves from the reprehensible actions of these two is to vote for Barack Obama for President.

Only by electing Obama will whites be absolved of their guilt and shame; only by electing Obama will whites be able to show they don't share the same hateful prejudice and bigotry.

Fortunately, many white Americans are already committed to voting for Obama, for the very reason of cleansing themselves of racial guilt. But this incident, especially if it is pushed relentlessly by the press [just the headline is enough; details are unimportant] has come along at just the right time to motivate those whites who still need to atone for the fundamentally racist nature that is congenitally ingrained in the DNA of all white people.

All the stories being spread about Obama's alleged associations with corrupt politicians and organizations, radicals, terrorists, anti-Americans, Black racists and anti-Semites, and his alleged Marxist agenda are just over-the-top, desperate ploys by the evil white power structure, to help whites rationalize and deny their racism, and to keep them from experiencing the soul-purifying glory of electing Barack Obama and proving they are not racists!

Lewis Diuguid Just Won't Quit
Lewis Diuguid missed his calling. He should be working in an emergency room somewhere. He reminds me of one of those heroic doctors or paramedics who just won't stop performing CPR even when the patient's EKG is a flat line with only an occasional weak blip, valiantly trying to bring the patient back to life.

Except that there's nothing heroic or valiant about Diuguid, because the moribund patient he works so tirelessly to revive is racism.

In two successive columns, Tues. Oct. 21 and Wed. Oct. 22, the Kansas City Star columnist surpasses even himself in the "heroic measures" he's willing to take to revive and nourish the scourge of racism in America.

The premise of his Oct. 21 column is so patently ridiculous, so over-the-top as to be laughable, if its appearance in what still passes (to some) for a serious newspaper weren't so tragic.

In that column, Diuguid (pronounced "Do Good") posits that the label "socialist" being applied to Barack Obama and his agenda (by those who recognize Socialism when they see it) is actually a "code word" for "Black" (Obama, by the way, is Black, you see, and undeserving of criticism on any grounds other than race).

As evidence, Diuguid cites that the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover applied the "socialist" label to Black civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson and A. Philip Randolph.

Never mind that all of them, even the sainted Dr. King, despite the great contributions they made, exhibited some socialist tendencies and were subjected to FBI investigations. And some exhibited more than just "tendencies".

Du Bois (a quite fascinating figure, who pronounced his name "doo-BOYZ", and came from a Massachusetts family untouched by slavery) was, despite his many scholarly good works, an admirer of Stalin, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as well as Communist China, and was a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize. He associated with various Leftists (not that one's associations matter!) and, late in life, joined the Communist Party.

Robeson, while alive, always denied being a card-carrying Communist, but after his death it was revealed he was a secret member of the Communist Party. He was a great admirer of Stalin and the Soviet Union, and even stated that anyone who opposed the Soviet Government "should be shot" (I'll leave it to the reader to infer any connection with the whiff of Stalinism exhibited by the Obama campaign's treatment of "Joe the Plumber"). Robeson was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize and, unfazed by the man's record of brutal oppression and genocide, wrote a glowing eulogy of Stalin.

Prizefighter Sugar Ray Robinson's reaction to Robeson's praise for the Soviets was to declare that if he ever met Paul Robeson, he would "punch him in the mouth".

Yet Lewis Diuguid posits that labeling these men "socialists" was merely "code" for opposing them based solely on their race.

Diuguid's Wednesday column merely continues his ongoing premise that racism is alive and well and thriving in America and asserts itself in every aspect of American life. I'm sure that if Diuguid got a flat tire on his way to work -- and what a tragedy that would be, if he couldn't write his column! -- it would be because some racist put a nail in the road! Almost every column Diuguid has ever penned has exploited some racial angle; he is relentless in his efforts to keep racism alive.

Like the ER doctor who has to be restrained by his colleagues from continuing to obsessively pound the chest of the expired patient, Diuguid's colleagues at The Star should be telling him to "give it a rest already!"

But No; The Star is complicit, making Diuguid a member of its Editorial Board and its Vice President for Community Resources. One has to assume, from the consistent slant of other stories in The Star, that Diuguid's agenda is The Star's agenda. Not that that should surprise anyone who has ever picked up Kansas City's version of Pravda.

The only good news in all this is that, on The Star's website, Diuguid's columns are followed by readers' comments, and the great majority of them, even from self-declared Liberals and some who identify themselves as Black, are outraged at Diuguid's disgraceful and tiresome attempts to make everything a racial issue.

These comments are far more deserving of being read than anything Diuguid writes. Despite the best efforts of the newspaper and its columnist, some of their readers have not yet flat-lined on the EEG (brain activity monitor).

The first was hearing that Gen. Colin Powell had endorsed Barack Obama. That news left me all but speechless. I could not begin to speculate what might have motivated him to do that, especially since he is, ostensibly, a Republican (albeit a liberal one) and a patriot.

I have to credit Chris Stigall of KCMO Radio 710 for having much sharper political instincts and judgment than my own. At 5 a.m. Monday morning I heard him nailing Gen. Powell as a shamelessly opportunistic sellout [and this is a shameless plug for Chris's show].

Now that I've heard more of Powell's remarks (in the interview with Tom Brokaw in which he announced his support for Obama), I have to agree with Chris!

I think what convinced me was hearing Powell glibly parrot the defensive talking points of the Obama spin-masters. Twice in the interview Powell toed the Obama propaganda line, trivializing and dismissing William Ayers and his influence on Obama. Imagine, a career military man unfazed by Obama's friendship with an America-hater who bombed the Pentagon!

Twice, also, he perpetuated the canard that McCain's people were accusing Obama of being a Muslim. But then Powell went further and bent over backwards to pander to Muslims. And he even praised Obama for his "patriotism"; that made me wonder if Powell and I are even on the same planet! The interview was far more than disappointing to me; it almost made me want to vomit.

What I heard was Colin Powell reducing himself to just another of Obama's lackeys, flushing whatever integrity he might have had down the toilet in the process, along with whatever admiration I, and Americans like me, held for him. I hope he's happy with whatever price he sold them for.

My second disappointment was catching the tail end of John McCain being interviewed by Chris Wallace. I tuned in just as Wallace asked McCain "What if you don't win the election?". McCain could have said, "Chris, I don't even consider that a possibility!" ; that's how I would have expected him to respond.

Instead, McCain went into a riff about how he'd "still be alright", how he'd go home to Arizona, how he was the luckiest man in the world, how he thanked God every day for the life he'd had, yada yada yada.

Now, somebody please help me out here, because I'm not a big sports guy: Did Vince Lombardi, or Bear Bryant, or [name your favorite, most inspirational, winningest coach] ever say, "Hey, even if we lose, I'll be OK"? Would even Herm Edwards say that, even in the midst of a losing season?

(By the way, 'too bad Obama didn't realize the Chiefs are doing so poorly when he asked the crowd to cheer for Herm at the Obama rally; but Hey, at least this time the Anointed One knew what city he was in!)

And I don't think Gen. Patton ever said, "Well, even if we don't win, don't feel sorry for me!"

I guess it's nice that McCain has never fallen for all that motivational crap about "Just visualize it and it will come true" or "Defeat is not an option". And I guess it's nice that, however the election turns out, John McCain's life will still be pretty comfortable and relatively unchanged.

How nice for McCain that, unlike some of us, the prospect of Barack Obama as President doesn't fill him with dread for the country's future. It's not as if, for McCain at least, this election will affect the survival of the United States as we know it!

Well, a lot of pundits said from the start that this election would really be a referendum on Barack Obama. I guess that's true; I'll still vote against Obama and I'll still urge everyone I know to do likewise, but, although I hate to say it, John McCain has made it just a bit harder to enthuse about voting for him!

Joe the Plumber and Dick the Butcher Have the Answer
So, "Joe the Plumber" is the name on everyone's lips.

To Americans who still have their heads on straight, he's like the child who declared "The Emperor has no clothes!"

To the Obamamaniacs and their press lackeys, he's a dangerous fellow. Imagine, a "mere" plumber who can recognize and understand the creeping socialism in Obama's "message"! Such citizens cannot be allowed to speak, let alone be heard, lest they encourage others to refuse to drink their Kool-Aid.

So "Joe the Plumber" is now the target of concerted efforts to discredit and defame him by any means necessary. I'm sure the most petty, picayune and inconsequential details of his life will be dug up and trotted out to try to cast disrepute on him.

In fact, the same legions of garbage-sifters and turd-scrutinizers, calling themselves investigative journalists, who were airlifted to Alaska in a desperate effort to uncover dirt on Sarah Palin have been converging on Ohio to work their magic on poor Joe, who still comes across as smarter, stronger and healthier (physically and mentally) than the lot of them.

Barack Obama himself -- his history, his associations -- wouldn't hold up to anywhere near the kind of intense examination that every facet of Joe the Plumber's life is now under. But Obama doesn't have to worry about that kind of scrutiny, does he?

I think we need more of "Joe the Plumber" in government. Our Founding Fathers ('Remember them, the ones always described by late night TV comics as "irrelevant dead white guys"?) thought ordinary citizens could do at least as good a job of governing as career politicians.

But along with more of "Joe the Plumber", I think we could use some of "Dick the Butcher", too.

For those who need to brush up their Shakespeare, Dick the Butcher is the character in King Henry VI, Part II who says, "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!"

Now, before a lot of lawyers or Shakespearean scholars start writing in, I already know that this is one of The Bard of Avon's most misunderstood lines.

In the play, Dick the Butcher was a follower of Jack Cade, a demagogue who wanted to overthrow the government. Killing all the lawyers would help achieve that goal. Lawyers are quick to point out that the line actually illustrates the "valuable role that lawyers play in our society".

I'm sure Shakespeare never intended for Dick the Butcher's line to be the rallying cry it has become for those who have had just about enough of lawyers and their antics.

But in Shakespeare's time government wasn't controlled by lawyer politicians parsing the meaning of "is" or exploiting loopholes for outfits like ACORN, or lawyer judges usurping the role of the Legislative Branch. Nor was society glutted with millionaire ambulance-chasers and litigation whores (John Edwards, call your office).

So, sure, Dick the Butcher's line is oft misinterpreted. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. If only we could replace all the lawyers with plumbers like Joe, and flush away all the backed-up sewage that's stinking up the halls of government, and may soon stink even worse!

The Bomber and The Burglar
John McCain appeared on David Letterman's show Thursday night. Probably the funniest moment -- funny, that is, in its sheer ludicrousness -- was when Letterman said, with a perfectly straight face, to John McCain, "Y'know, I'm an independent; I have no party affiliation whatsoever", and then proposed that McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy (the two men hardly pal around together) is the moral equivalent of Barack Obama's relationship (which looks more and more like protégé/mentor) with William Ayers!!

Well, Liddy was, after all, convicted of nine felonies (including conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping), all related to the botched 1972 break-in of Democrat headquarters in the Watergate complex and none of which involved physically harming a soul; and he served time for them (4 1/2 years, in six different prisons, including 100 days in solitary confinement).

Liddy's Watergate crew called themselves "the plumbers", because their job was to plug security leaks for Nixon's White House. So you could say that Liddy is the second "plumber" in the news this week!

But Letterman's attempt to equate Liddy with Ayers has leaks no plumber could patch.

Before joining Nixon's staff, Liddy had served as an Army artillery officer, as a county prosecutor and as an FBI Agent and Bureau Chief.

Liddy's crimes, for which he served time, came out of his desire to serve the U.S.; Liddy has never, by any stretch, been accused of hating his country.

Ayers's crimes, for which he got off on a technicality and never served time, came out of his desire to destroy the U.S.; Ayers has never, by any stretch, been accused of loving his country.

Unlike Ayers, Liddy (despite his small stature) can never be described as a sniveling little coward!

Ayers has stated that his only regret is that his group didn't carry out more bombings.

Liddy has stated that his only regret is that more in his group didn't keep silent the way he did.

P.S. Both Liddy and Ayers have authored books; I recommend Liddy's autobiography, "Will", and his novel, "The Monkey Handlers".

Esoteric Liddy reference: I'd like to arrange a meeting between Liddy and Ayers; I'd make sure Liddy had access to a sharpened #2 pencil.

The Last Debate
Well, I'd say the old sailor-man took my advice and ate some spinach before the last presidential debate [see my column, "Spinach Time for Popeye"].

And while he didn't exactly swab the deck with Obama (he was far too polite to do that), Popeye certainly fired a couple of broadsides that seemed to take some wind out of Obama's sails (inspired by the commonality of nautical metaphors that Jack Cashill has discovered in the strangely similar writing styles of Barack Obama and William Ayers, I'm trying to employ a few myself).

"Hey, when you were a kid growing up in Hawaii, or wherever, did you ever hear that little kids' rhyme, 'Sticks and stones will break my bones'? Lemme tell ya something: I was in a North Vietnamese prison for five and half years; I had my bones broken over and over. You don't see me getting my little panties in a wad over the tone of a few words in an ad. Get over it and quit your whining."

B.O. seemed determined to have the William Ayers issue raised; he seemed disappointed when McCain didn't jump at the first chance B.O. gave him to address it, but he managed to bring it up again so he could deliver his calculated spin about how little influence Ayers had or would have. B.O. seemed supremely confident that his dismissive "explanation" would finally put the matter to rest.

I just wish Popeye McCain had said, "Senator, maybe everything you say about your relationship with Mr. Ayers is true. But how do you feel about the fact that, based on your relationship with Mr. Ayers, no matter how innocent it might be, the FBI would never give you the kind of clearance you'd need to be a Letter Carrier for the Post Office, let alone to work for the FBI, the Secret Service or any national security agency?"

And when the story of B.O.'s exchange with "Joe the Plumber" came up, I wish McCain had said, "I can see where people like Joe make you nervous, Senator. Ordinary, working Americans, especially blue-collar guys like Joe, aren't supposed to be able to recognize and understand what constitutes socialism the way Joe does, are they?"

And I wish McCain had continued, "But I think your idea of 'sharing the wealth' is a great idea, Senator! And I know you practice what you preach, too. Why, just look at the way you've shared some of your wealth with your brother in Kenya!"

Top 5 ways the KC Star's price increase will affect my life
5. I will miss reading the "Irish sports pages" (the obituaries) while enjoying coffee and a cigar.

4. I'll have to switch to old paper bags from the grocery store for lining the bird's cage and the cat's litter box; ditto for housebreaking puppies. And I may go back to buying actual fish wrap, now that there's not much price difference.

3. Should my blood pressure ever get too low, I'll have to find something other than Lewis Diuguid's, Mary Sanchez's or Rhonda Chriss Lokeman's columns to raise it back up.

2. I'm far too polite to just hang up on them, but I now have an even better reason to cut off the Star's telephone solicitors in mid-pitch with "Good luck to you on your next call" (and then hang up)!

And the Number One way the Kansas City Star's price increase will affect my life:

What Israel can expect from Obama
Jesse Jerkson (also known as "The Spitter" because he's told of how, as a young man working as a waiter, he would spit in the food he brought to white people) was last in the news for remarking that he'd like to "cut [Barack Obama's] nuts out". Not "off", mind you (as if that weren't hateful enough), but "out".

Well, I'm happy to see that relations seem to be much warmer between Messrs. Jerkson and Obama now, with Jerkson serving as B.O.'s spokesman and issuing statements on what Israel can expect from an Obama administration.

It's not a rosy picture for Israel. Jerkson says that, "because of his background", Obama can feel what Muslims feel, and will patch up U.S. relations with the Islamic world, at Israel's expense. I suppose it's not really news, given B.O.'s connections with Louis Farrakhan (like Jerkson, another man of God), Jimmy Carter, and the big Arab money that has bankrolled his campaign.

But why did he pick now to release that statement, which would seem destined to alienate Jewish voters?

Well, on the one hand, he's telegraphing that the Obama camp is now so confident of victory that the Jewish vote doesn't really matter one way or the other (despite all the concern about carrying Florida).

And, on the other hand, most American Jews are still (and, as a Jew, I find this confounding and deeply embarrassing) Liberals first, and will vote for Obama even if he shows up wearing a kaffiyeh festooned with swastikas (which would really not surprise me all that much).

Those who will be alienated by the statement are those American Christians who are staunch supporters of Israel. But B.O.'s view of the world already holds them in contempt and condescension, so they don't matter either.

So perhaps Jerkson's statement about B.O.'s Israel policy is merely to show that Obama is willing to slap both Jews and Christians in the face in order to curry even more favor with two other groups: the "secular progressives" for whom Obama is the messiah of the post-Judeo-Christian, post-patriotic, post-nationalist age; and the millions and millions of jihad-sympathizing Muslims around the world who, given the opportunity, would happily convert, enslave, or cut the throats of all of us.

The truth is, B.O. is showing that his regard for the continued survival of Israel is not so different from his regard for the continued survival of the U.S., or even the survival of Democracy and Freedom.

Another precinct heard from...
So, it seems that Fidel Castro has again weighed in on our Presidential race, essentially re-stating the endorsement of Obama he first gave back in May.

Well, that just about clinches things for me. I might have started out being in doubt about voting for Obama, but he now has so many distinguished world leaders in his corner, how can I resist?

Let's see, Obama has now been endorsed by such luminaries as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Louis Farrakhan, Kim Jong-Il and Jimmy Carter, not to mention Michael Moore, Oprah, Rosie O'Donuts, Barbra Streisand, Paris Hilton and all those other oh-so-politically-astute celebrity-types.

Now if Iran's Ahmedinejad would chime in (or has he by now?) and if Osama bin Laden can send word from his cave, and maybe if they can dig up Yassir Arafat to add his endorsement, well, how could anyone not want to vote for Barack Obama?

Why, it just makes me want to join the processional lined up to genuflect before him and kiss his #@*%ing ring!

I mean, after all that, whose endorsement is there to hold out for? Karl Marx himself?

Why Obama's Lies Don't Matter
Barack Obama lying about his friendship with William Ayers is no different from Bill Clinton claiming that he smoked pot but "never inhaled". Both men's lies are delivered with a wink to their supporters, who are unperturbed because such lies are merely a means to an end.

Lies by Republicans, you see, are egregious and intolerable, and proof
of evil intent; lies by Democrats, on the other hand, are necessary to defeat the evil Republicans, and proof of superior political skills.

George W. Bush's lies are alleged by the Left to be grounds for impeachment, even if they weren't lies. Did he "lie us into war" by "lying about weapons of mass destruction"? That "Saddam never possessed weapons of mass destruction" is a classic example of the "Big Lie" theory of Dr. Goebbels; a lie that, told often enough, becomes the truth.

But Bill Clinton's ability to lie was the subject of awestruck praise by his fawning toadies in the press. Now the lies of Barack Obama and those around him, with the support of bootlicking press lackeys, may get him elected.

The Right has been so demonized, through decades of orchestrated, insidious, relentless propaganda, that a large measure of the American electorate thinks nothing could be worse than another Republican president; not even a lying, lifelong socialist with a troubling history and a treacherous agenda, who is endorsed by the likes of Hugo Chavez and Louis F