Thought While Shaving: Why I Cuss (not Curse) and Can’t Imagine it’s a Sin.

  Feast of St. Monica, Mother of St. Augustine*   
                                                 Cussing.

             Now that I’ve been writing this blog for five years, it’s time I…well not make a confession…but make an affirmative statement.  I cuss.  It’s a habit I got from my father who was an eloquent cusser.  I think I know about as much theology as the average guy who took four straight years of theology and philosophy from Ernie…and I’ll tell you, I still can’t imagine anyone thinking use of swear words is a sin.  I exempt denunciations that invoke the name of the Son of God for expletives.  But let me ask you this?

What’s wrong with letting it go with a string of cliché imprecations when you stub your toe in the dark or are demoted at work or miss a train when the next one won’t be arriving for an hour and you will miss luncheon with someone who wants to introduce you to a potential client? 

           Do you think not swearing is virtuous?  Saying “heck” instead of hell?  Forget it.   

            Oh I admit that use of swear words is a breach of etiquette; they shouldn’t be used in front of children.  But let’s get this straight: What I categorize as swear words are not words of obscenity that degrading sexual congress.  Although, friends, I’ve got to say this: When telling a story to adults…and quoting someone who for effect used an obscenity…I don’t find it a mortal or even venial sin to reproduce his conversation.  And I find it sanctimonious as hell (there I go again) when somebody—usually a woman—simulates going into a dead faint because I describe someone I despise as…putting it euphemistically…a person of illegitimate birth or a male whose mother is a female canine.  

           The wildest concoction of political correctness is this.  Suppose I say about a miscreant who has verbally assailed me as— 

           “That person of illegitimate birth!”  Or “that guy whose mother is a female canine!” 

         That would pass the respectability test but also produce exchange of  strange looks from others at the table but that’s it.  They wouldn’t faint away with shock…but why should they look askance, look around the room and hope no one overheard… regard me as indelicate and a boor if I say— 

         “Do you know what that officious  bastard wrote in The New York Times today?  He tried to dress up research in embryonic stem cells as vital to saving lives when he knows—fully knows—that adult stem cells can do the job. You know what?  That sonuvabitch simply glories in defending an act of snuffing out lives!” 

        The fact remains that I feel better when I say this…and that’s important—important to let repressed steam be released…a safety valve that spares bottled up blood pressure. 

        Let’s be clear. Cussing fate with a string of denunciatory colorful words is different from cursing where you call down evil on someone.  Or invoke God to strike someone dead. That’s altogether different. I would judge that to say “goddammit” is different than slowly pronouncing “God damn so-and-so!”  Although I’ve been known to do that as well.  But seriously calling down evil on someone and invoking God to do it is blasphemy. 

          Ernie once told us that to curse rational creatures is a grave offense against justice and charity.  When I sat in his classroom so long ago listening to him I thought—and still think—but if you say this to yourself and do not poison this guy’s reputation by enunciating it to someone else but to yourself in solitude, what’s wrong with that?  It makes me feel better.  And who hears it when I mutter to myself?  Ever since that time I have doubted Ernie on that particular item.  How do you sin against justice and charity if you growl to yourself imprecations against an unfeeling boss for example?   

         Another thing Ernie would say is this: “To curse irrational creatures such as the weather or animals who let us say defecate on the floor is a venial sin of impatience.”  Wha? Do you understand what I’m getting at here?  Is it not possible that we are too Jansenist in this business of cussing?  Do we imagine that General George Armstrong Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn…when suddenly surrounded by 3,000 Indians who seemingly came thundering out of the hills from ostensibly nowhere…and remembering that he foolishly left a supply of Gatling guns at Yellowstone because he felt they would not be needed…said: 

          “Oh my gosh where did these darned Indians come from all of a sudden?  And gee whiz, I wish I had the Gatling guns!” 

            Ernie also said this: “To curse the evil spirit as the enemy of God and human beings is lawful.”  That means I guess I can say: “God damn the devil and all his works!”  

          But Ernie, being Ernie, added: “Exclamations that in themselves are not sinful may become so for other reasons such as the danger of scandal.” 

          Why don’t you share with me your views…theological and otherwise…about the vice—I’ll admit it is that—of cussing? 

     *: Feast of St. Monica, Mother of St. Augustine [332-387]. Born in North Africa, Monica earned her sainthood the hard way. First she was married to Patricius, a dissolute pagan who was often unfaithful to her, a boozer and violent in temper when he was drinking which was often, reportedly.  Second her mother-in-law lived with them who had a scathing tongue and who sided with her son in all disputes, never staying out of them but intruding with bias and ill-feeling. Suffering through all that should have made Monica a saint anyhow—but she fell into alcoholism (I can understand why) which she conquered.

         Freeing herself of that old devil booze, she then proceeded to win his conversion. He was baptized in 370 and while she expected the remainder of their lives to be spent in calm and forbearance, he died the following year. She had three children: Augustine, Navigius and Perpetus…of which as we know Augustine was her greatest blessing but for years her greatest trial. The early Augustine lived such an irregular life that they argued often as she sought to get him to change his ways—finally throwing him out of her house. But she didn’t give up, turning to prayer, fasts and vigils hoping to achieve by these things what arguing failed to do.

        Augustine became, as we know, a great intellectual and teacher but still in his early adulthood did not change his ways.  In fact as he admits in his Confessions, he misled his mother on when his ship would leave for Rome and so when she showed up at the dock, the ship had already departed.  She caught the next ship, followed him to Rome and from there to Milan.  She contacted and was highly esteemed by Ambrose (later canonized), the bishop of Milan who converted him first to the moral life…enabling him to send his mistress away…and then to Catholicism, being baptized in 387. No convert to go halfway, Augustine rejected Monica’s suggestion that he marry in favor of the celibate life.  Gloriously happy, Monica set out on a journey to Africa with him but died on the way, at Ostia the same year her famous son was baptized.  She was only 55 but she earned her canonization through suffering, prayer, penance and humiliation. Humiliation? Nothing like being left on the dock while the ship carrying her son sails without her.

        

Thought While Shaving: Ron Paul Supports Building the Mosque, Contradicting His Son. Then There’s Dickie Durbin vs. Harry Reid!

    Feast of St. Bartholomew*

          
                                                 Ron Paul.

         The latest statement from Ron Paul says we may well share some blame for 9/11 because we are too anti-Islam and have identified with the Neocons and their stand in the Middle East.  This is the same Ron Paul who has called for the disestablishment of the CIA and all American foreign intelligence systems. He is getting more like Lyndon Larouche every day. And to stand with him, paleos have to decide if they want to be weird cult followers or thoughtful conservatives. 

       Said Paul in a formal statement: “It has been said `Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’  Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians?  It looks to me like the politicians are `fiddling while the economy burns.’ 

      “The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1^stamendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque. 

       “Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be `sensitive’ requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from `ground zero.’   

     “Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace and prosperity.  There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate raises the question of just why and drive by whom? 

      “In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.   

      “They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill-conceived preventative wars” 

        This harkens back to the Iman Rauf statement that indicates U.S. foreign policy invited the attack:   

       “If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to denounce Islam, need to denounce Islam would be difficult if not impossible.  

      “There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains: What exactly motivates this hatred? 

     “If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.”  

       The Ron Paul statement is in direct contrast to the statement of his son Rand Paul, the Republican nominee from Kentucky who opposes the mosque being built near Ground Zero. It’s time Republicans denounce the nutty Ron Paul for what he is: a crackpot and an unwitting ally of Islamic extremism. When are the voters of the 14^th district of Texas going to resolve to rejoin the Union by defeating this crazy coot who is running for his…get this…11^th full term?  So much for fighting careerism in politics!  

        Ah but old Ron and his kid Rand aren’t  the only contradictory elements emanating from the controversy.  Our senior U. S. senator Dick Durbin has endorsed building of the mosque and then attacked “politicians like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin who try to divide America with fear and hate over this issue…” He said they “betray the diversity which makes our nation great and the Constitution which they profess to honor.” 

         Strange, isn’t it, that The Dick didn’t mention Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate who opposes building of the Mosque and who Durbin wishes to succeed…meaning “I hope nothing bad happens to Harry Reid like losing in Nevada which will open up the job for me.” 

    _________________________________________________________

   *: St. Bartholomew [1^st Century].  One of the original apostles—but the question is: Was he Bartholomew or Nathaniel? The Synoptic gospels speak of Bartholomew but John calls him Nathaniel. The two are considered the same man by current biblical scholars. Pantenus of Alexandria is said to have found in India during the second half of the 2^nd century the gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew and reportedly left behind by Bartholomew. He is attributed by most scholars to have evangelized in India and Armenia where he is said to have been flayed alive before being beheaded at Derbend on the Caspian Sea.

Thoughts While Shaving: Here’s Eddie McClelland with Helpful Advice to Republicans (Ignore the Conservative Base)…The Flaws on Fox.

     Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.* 

      

                    Who’s Ed McClelland Again?  Remind Me. 

       Folksy liberal Edward McClelland who writes the Channel 5 NBC blog Ward Room is filled with unsolicited sucker advice for the Illinois GOP.  My question: Ed, anent your helpful suggestions to the GOP, when was the last time you voted for one of its candidates?  Was it 2008 for McCain? 2004 for Bush?  2000 for Bush?  I thought not.  

        Anyhow he just got up yesterday morning and decided to give the party a lot of gratuitous and unsolicited advice.  This is from the same outfit that told Mark Kirk it wasn’t interested in getting any more news releases disparaging Giannoulias about the mobster loans he made from his family’s bank.  

         McClelland’s free-for-nothing advice: Republicans don’t need to court the right.  In other words: skip the Fox Network Glenn Beck-Andrew Breitbart session scheduled here. Kirk is going but then I’m not surprised.  He has the inner resolve of a limp noodle. Brady isn’t going either—by which I am surprised. If anybody needs recognition from the base aside from downstate, it’s him.   

         Of course McClelland’s “advice” is duplicitous. The first rule in politics is to energize one’s base.  The base of the GOP is resolutely conservative. And to capitalize on an energized base, a candidate should show his/her face and identify with it. Fox has the most TV watchers and its commentators rank with the most popular in the nation. Beck’s viewers rank into the millions and is the fastest growing commentator in the U. S. now.   Breitbart is close to joining the same league.   

        Already another would-be Republican well-wisher, Capitol Fax has hectored Republicans to stay away: All this advice for the good of the GOP, you know.  Gene McCarthy used to say that most newsies hang together like blackbirds on a telephone wire.  One settles on it and is soon joined by a flock.  Talk about Journ-a-List and its litany of anti-GOPers: In this Squid state where 90% of journalists either belong or are straight Dem voters, Journ-a-List isn’t needed. They just think the same without corresponding with each other.  Did you ever hear Carol Marin talk so warmly of “Jimmy” Warren, the ex-Trib editor who now purveys his liberalism to The New York Times two days a week (Friday and Sunday)  via a special foundation grant and good old  WTTW-TV?   

         Capitol Fax thinks it odd…and is compelled to tell its readers this…that Bill Brady attended a fund-raiser here in town for Sharron Angle the GOP Senate nominee opposing Nevada’s Harry Reid, the majority leader.   Oh-oh-oh, Brady: Mustn’t do!  Sharron Angle is a…gasp…conservative!  A far-right nut, don’t you understand?  Memo to Capitol Fax: She’s tied with Reid in the latest CBS poll. I really get a kick out of these trembling media Democrats who want to spare Republican candidates “embarrassment” with the so-called “moderates.”  BS. They want Republicans   to placate the Left. As if the Left would ever vote for Brady. 

          And lookie here, another faux GOP “adviser,” Bernie Schoenberg, a columnist for the Springfield Journal-Register has already flown in to take a spot on the telephone wire with McClelland and Capitol Fax.  Schoenberg cares very deeply about Republican welfare too so he’s issuing his own advice.  

            What it is, is less of advice than a media threat. Don’t attend this meeting, do you get it?  But just to soften it a bit so that it seems like friendly advice, McClelland says “Republicans don’t need to be seen with Beck and Breitbart any more than Democrats need an endorsement from Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore.” The analogy is inept. Lesbian outer Maddow is far less known than any Fox contributor and she’s on the slightly watched MSNBC.  Aside from producing a film every few years of so that intrigues The Daily Kos, Moore is not well known. 

         So understand this: The supposedly “friendly” advice is duplicitous. But it also carries an implied threat to Republicans. Meaning obviously, if candidates show up they’ll be fodder for Schoenberg’s liberal-slanted columns in the future.  

            Just a few words of friendly advice…or threats…from our collegial lefty media folks who have so distinguished themselves in the past for dissing Republican candidates and issues.   Don’t kid yourself, like blackbirds sitting on a telephone wire as purported “friends with advice” to the GOP  they are…and as November 2 approaches, first one and then the flock will fly away to vote for and write in behalf of Squid candidates.  They’ll do an “agonized recapitulation” and wind up supporting Quinn and Giannoulias.  Count on it. 

                                          Where Fox Has Flaws. 

           I find the best news show extant on television is Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier shown here at 5 p.m.  One of its highlights is its Fox All Stars panel which features two superstars commenting on domestic, international and military affairs—Charles Krauthammer, a nationally syndicated columnist and holder of a Pulitzer prize for commentary and Stephen Hayes, senior writer for The Weekly Standard.  

          Just to illustrate what Aquinas said about nothing in this world being perfect, both men have…for my taste…a soft acceptance for gay rights.  A few months ago both agreed that repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for the military is the right way to go because…as Krauthammer said…times are changing.  That’s a hell of a reason.   Times are changing and cultural mores are changing to decadence and the answer is not shrugging acceptance.  

      Last night Krauthammer lamented…correctly so far as it goes…that the action of a justice [a self-proclaimed gay: my comment] on the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals justice in San Francisco (where else?) to up-end the vote of Californians to up-end the gay marriage ban…was a mistake. Why?  Not what you think.   He cited the fact that some years ago the vote against same-sex marriage in California was much heavier than it was last week—signaling a change in popular attitude.  Why not wait until the public comes around rather than having a Court overturn it?  

      He noted that it is a similar mistake made by the U. S. Supreme Court on Roe v. Wade.  Some major states…New York and California among them…had legalized abortion but the Court’s action which overruled all popular statements prompted bitterness and acrimony that has extended from 1973 until now…and certainly will go beyond this year into the indefinite future.  I agree with that so far as it goes.  If the Court hadn’t stepped in and written a highly criticized ruling blocking legislative change, we’d be involved in state-by-state repeal. 

            Hayes agreed with Krauthammer about gay rights.  But the two of them negated any judgment of absolutes endemic in Judeo-Christian belief that both abortion and homosexual practices are morally wrong—and are moral absolutes. These beliefs are part of the woof and texture of thought on which America was founded.  Krauthammer and Hayes thus reflected utilitarian thought, foreign to most of the founders: that which is agreeable to a seeming majority should be passed.  Or as they said last night: Just stick around and attitudes on  gay rights will begin to go further Leftward—so there’s no need for a Court ruling.  But they gave off the view that gay marriage is preferable and inevitable without Court action.  Meaning no absolutes.  

            If I knew Krauthammer who seems to be the intellectual superior of the two, I’d say: Hey, Charlie—if there are no absolutes and we must be guided only by what we see in the ever-shifting sands of public opinion, what about the trend of American public opinion slowly swinging away from ideological defense of Israel—even with the Jews themselves? .  How about that?  I’m sure his answer would be one of horror. He is an absolutist on Israel—as is Hayes (working for the pro-Israel Weekly Standard run by Billy Kristol, a Jew).  

           Israel, to Charlie and to Hayes, are absolutes. As it is with me. But as for them, social issues affecting the moral status of the nation don’t count, apparently.   

           All the same, Special Report is still my favorite of all television news programs.  Just pointing out a tic in the panel that recurs whenever Krauthammer and Hayes are on and gay rights as an issue is raised. Otherwise they’re all right: in fact, brilliant. 

_____________________________________________________________

     *: The Transfiguration of Our Lord.  The wildest, most death defying Mercedes-Benz ride  my wife and I ever had occurred 15 years ago as our guide-driver leaned back unperturbed while we  roared up the narrow, twisting and turning road shorn of fences or roadblocks separating us from many hundreds of feet in a sharp drop…leading to the top of Mount Tabor, site of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. . We were sure we were  going to plunge over the precipice to join (hopefully) those  who witnessed the event more than 2000 years ago: Peter, James, son of Zebedee and John (the beloved Apostle).  But we made it and also survived the terrifying  descent averaging at least 60 mph. (our eyes shut tighly, lips intoning the Act of Contrition).   But we did view the vista from which Christ was transfigured as recorded in all the Synoptic gospels  and where He became radiant, spoke  with Moses and Elijah…the two preeminent figures of Judaism and was called “Son” by God the Father: “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  Hear ye Him!”. 

         Aquinas has called it the greatest miracle since it happened to Jesus Himself (not others) and demonstrated the perfect happiness of heaven. It also demonstrated that He was the Son of God.  Christ tells them not to tell others what they saw until He had risen on the 3^rd day after his crucifixion on the cross.  All authentic Catholic theologians agree that Moses and Elijah represent the Law and Prophets respectively.  Christ’s conversation with them represents how He fulfills the Law and the Prophets.

Thoughts While Shaving: Sun-Times Drives Home its Anti-Catholic Point with 3 Columnists Blasting the Church.

    Feast of Pope St. Victor*
         
                             The Blisteringly Anti-Catholic Tabloid.

        The Chicago Sun-Times is the number one Catholic-basher among U.S. urban newspapers…running on regular basis columnists Carol Marin, Neil Steinberg and Christopher Hitchens all of whom repeatedly slug the Church, the paper not bothering to run any defense of the Church…despite the fact that Catholics comprise 40% of the population of Cook and Lake counties.  

         Marin, a strident liberal who is a one-person oligopoly in commentary (newspaper columnist, NBC-TV and WTTW-TV public television commentator) on occasion calls herself Catholic but rabidly disagrees with the Church’s basic theological fundamentals—abortion, gay rights (she endorses same-sex marriage) and the male priesthood. A braying ignoramus on theology and church tradition, known as Apassionata van Leftward the 60sh flame-haired, radical feminist frequently baits the Church, last Sunday wrote of interviewing heretical lefty nuns who are challenging the hierarchy.  In the paper she blasted the Church (the theology of which she knows nothing and cares not a whit) for certifying that the nuns who want to be ordained priests are under scrutiny.  

        How dare the Church seek to discipline its own without checking with the rabid man-hater who nurtures a grievance that men are usurping women’s rightful place…this despite the fact that she earned big bucks as a TV anchor on NBC and duplicitously avoided being fired for low ratings by serving up the pretext that her exalted standard of ethics would force her to resign because her station signed Jerry Springer.  That bogus stand for “principle!”  Calculating her story with abject cynicism, she avoided being tagged for the real reason she was being demoted—a ratings flame-out.  

         Skillfully this authenticist Catholic-hating ranting far-left ideologue linked the charge made by the Vatican scored the fact that a bishop excommunicated a nun for sanctioning the abortion of a woman…repeating the canard—earlier disproven—that the nun ordered the procedure in order to save the life of the mother of four.  Then she equated the legalized murder perpetrated by the nun with laxity of the “old boy” network concerning pedophilia.  If she dared intake a breath of honesty she would know that neither she nor the Vatican officially have the guts to call the reason for pedophilia by the right name.  As Marin is a patron of homosexual “rights” she cannot reconcile herself to recognize that the cause of child abuse is the liberal intake by the seminaries of outward exhibiting and closet lavenders. . 

        Marin is one of three Sun-Times lightweights to slurp ink over the vestige of the Church, its 2000 year old rubrics against abortion, its refusal to stomach gay advocacy and its opposition to women priests.  

        The second is the syndicated columnist Christopher Hitchens.   

       Hitchens’ glowering bearded face appears weekly in the tabloid.  He is so virulent an anti-Catholic that shortly after the death of Mother Teresa…the beatified nun who served the very poor of the Calcutta streets, ministering to the hungry, sick, dying and their progeny, he wrote the scurrilous, blasphemous book The Missionary Position which ridiculed her work, the title, of course, the double entendre of a sex position, blistering her as one who adopted the guise of a saint to spread an extremist religious ideology (Catholicism) and raise money. 

        Explaining his choice of the book’s title, Hitchens said: “It was either this or Sacred Cow and I thought Sacred Cow would be in bad taste.” This regular weekly columnist for The Sun-Times maintains that she used contributions to open convents in 150 countries rather than establishing a teaching hospital, that she did not lift a finger to support “structural measures to end poverty” and that she did not do anything to raise the status of women.  Shades of Carol Marin.  

        The third is Neil Steinberg.   He’s a reform Jew who makes much of his Jewishness although he’s far from observant…a guy who slugged his wife in a drunken rage with a cell phone and spent time in jail and who writes a column frequently berating the Church’s lack of humanity (last week he called me a Catholic “gargoyle” because I defend the Church from his abuse). He’s called the Church a “a bully in eyeglasses” [I don’t quite get what it means but maybe he’s gone back on the bottle] because some members of the hierarchy have called for excommunication of politicians who support abortion.  He has no time for Catholic dogma but then doesn’t know a thing about its theology, counting on long-disproven theories to shore up his pseudo-sophisticated bigoted anti-Catholic rants, raking up make-believe sophistry on Galileo and Copernicus that begs for scholarly erudition…but it is not in him.  

          Attacking the pro-life movement isn’t the same as being virulently ant-Catholic as Steinberg is, but you can understand by reading his words on abortion why he hates the Catholic Church.  Simply, abortion means a great deal to him.  His jaded cynicism about life can be seen readily by his terming abortion “murder lite.”  

           “Abortion isn’t murder—well, not until the last stage of pregnancy when it is, but rather a sort of murder—murder lite…” 

         Again: “If being pro-life meant an across-the-board reverence for life—if pro-life activists were Human Watch members, also fierce opponents of capital punishment and vigorous battlers of AIDS in Africa and, of course, anti-handgun and anti-war—then I could almost understand the compressed rage that pro-lifers often exhibit.” 

          More:  “The abortion is murder line is just that—a slogan. The people saying it obviously don’t believe that in their hearts [sic] because otherwise they’d be even more extreme than they already are. If it’s murder then why aren’t they talking about, not only banning abortion, bu also conducting enormous public trials to prosecute the millions of women who have had one?”  

          There you have it…Marin…Hitchens…Steinberg.  My word to the tabloid is not to fire them…but not be surprised if—as I hope—a wave of criticism and canceled subscriptions hits.  The idea that the paper has a supposed Catholic publisher…John Barron…and a Catholic editor of the editorial page…and both can stomach this tide of religious hatred is sickening.  

    __________________________________________________________

    *: Pope St. Victor [AD 199]. He was a native of Africa   and succeeded St.Eleutherius as pope.  He struggled hard against heresies including one caused by an arrival from Byzantium of a leather merchant named Theodotus who taught that Jesus Christ was only a supernaturally endowed man. Then there was a group of Asians in Rome who insisted on celebrating Easter on a date that accorded with their own traditions. When certain Asian bishops supported them he threatened the whole bunch with excommunication.   St. Iranecus of Lyons told him he was too severe but Victor’s strength got the dissidents to yield. He died worn out, a chilly and aloof man but whose vigor and energy caused his enemies to accept the rule of Rome. 

Thoughtas While Shaving: These Are the Dumbest People of the Week. Zuckerman…Simon…Salazar

      Feast of Saint Bonaventure*

         

        The Dumbest Billionaire.  

            I suppose if you’re Jewish yet dumb enough to be taken for millions by slicker lefty ideologue Bernie Madoff you’re dumb enough…even though you’re a Wharton MBA and Harvard lawyer…to be taken for a ride by Obama even if you’re the president of pro-Israel organizations notwithstanding that it was clear during the campaign that The One was, if not by heritage, at least by passion a supporter of Palestinian militancy.  But all the same it’s humiliating for a supposed business sharpie like Mort Zuckerman to have to admit it as he did yesterday on Fox News that he not only voted for Obama but wrote at least one speech for him. 

            His writing for Obama doesn’t faze me or give me the sense of unethical conduct. When you’re a newspaper publisher you can do whatever you want.  Remember Phil Graham who advised JFK to pick LBJ while Graham was publisher of The Washington Post? Doesn’t bother me. Publishers have played politics all the time: they’re entitled.  Col. McComick huddled with Bob Taft; William Randolph Hearst confabbed with a host of Dem candidates pre-FDR.  

             Even journalists who play politics under the covers don’t necessarily sicken me.  Steve Neal did it all the time—and some say he paid the price. George Tagge of The Trib became a part-time lobbyist to get McCormick Place built. But what I don’t understand is this: All of them were smart.  

          Zuckerman is supposed to be smart. So what in the world was he thinking when Obama was running around pledging that he would be the very Lefty he has become? I mean it’s no surprise that he foisted a Rube Goldberg health insurance plan on us because he said he would.   Not blowing my own horn but I was the first radio interview Obama had after getting elected to the state Senate. I knew he was a socialist then.  I knew his foil of agreeing with every radio caller (“you have a point; you too have a point”) was a dodge.  

         Wasn’t Zuckerman around when Obama promised all the stuff that since has come true?  Zuckerman is a Zionist. Wasn’t he around when Obama kept dissing Israel during the campaign?    Now the publisher of U. S. News & World Report and The New York Daily News is disenchanted because of Obama’s record, saying he’s barely treading water. What did he expect—that Obama would walk on water? I guess he bought that stuff about the seas rising and planets healing after the 2008 election.  

            I always thought Zuckerman was a smart guy.  But then I should have known.  Anybody who could stand going out with a young Gloria Steinem even for one date in the `60s has got to have something wrong with him.           

         

                             The Dumbest Pundit. 

            For some reason Politico’s Roger Simon has the reputation of being astute. The other day in The Sun-Times he wrote that Michael Steele has a chance of being nominated for president by the GOP.  

            Michael Steele? The GOP national chairman who has said Afghanistan is an un-winnable war?  Whose finance director took a group of contributors to a gay-lesbian bondage club?  Who in the heart of the recession said that the GOP’s winter meeting will be in Hawaii while the rest of the nation’s Republicans froze?   Who attacked Rush Limbaugh (who has 20 million conservative listeners daily) by saying he’s mean-spirited and just an entertainer?   

                                 The Dumbest Interior Secretary. 

             So there they all were yesterday in New Orleans at the very first meeting of the presidential commission on the BP-Deepwater Horizon incident.  Testifying was Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who since he’s been sworn in has been regarded as at least two bricks shy of a load. 

             Salazar told the commission that he was awaiting its recommendation concerning the administration’s proposal to halt deepwater drilling. 

             Wait a minute, said the commission’s two co-chairmen with almost the same voice: We’re only 10 minutes old as a commission. We were told specifically by the White House that we’d be concerned with long-range policy matters, not decisions like this!  In fact your very own deputy, David Hayes, told us that this question is not our concern. After all, the decision has already been made by the White House, remember?  

             Salazar said, weakly, oh?   

             But just to clear things up the two co-chairmen, William K. Reilly and former Florida Senator Bob Graham announced that they  plan to go to the Interior Department “to try to clarify what is our responsibility and how we’re going to carry it out.” 

              Go to the Interior Department?  But the Secretary of the Interior is on hand!  He’s just said he’s expecting your recommendation and his assistant has said that you don’t have to be concerned about deep-water drilling policy. And now you’re going to the Interior Department to clear things up?   

   _____________________________________________________________

   *: Saint Bonaventure [1221-1274]. He was born Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnore, Italy but reportedly received the name Bonaventure from Francis of Assisi who cured him of a childhood illness. He studied theology at the University of Paris under Alexander of Hales whose disciple he became…later receiving a doctorate in theology with Thomas Aquinas in 1257.  He was a stunning mind and was named Cardinal-bishop of Albano by Gregory X, and assigned by Gregory to draw up a plan to effect a reconciliation with the church of the East at the 14^th council of Lyons—but he died while the council was in session. The fact that there has never been an effective reunion can be laid to the fact that at the strategic time the man who could have done it, Bonaventure, died. He was one of the outstanding philosophers and theologians of the medieval times, known as the “Seraphic Doctor.” Too bad Bonaventure died because reunion between Rome and the East has been on hold ever since. Bonaventure was regarded as the guy who could have got it done—and nobody has arisen yet with his credentials.

Thoughts While Shaving: Clinton Says Byrd Embraced the Klan “to Get Elected.” …Will Somebody Get the Hook for Michael Steele?...Why Don’t Candidates Forget Their Past? More.

     Feast of St. Maria Goretti* 

                

                                        Clinton. 

             At a memorial for Sen. Robert Byrd Bill Clinton said Byrd joined the Klan because he had to, to get elected. 

              Oh, well, then it’s all right, huh Bubba? 

            Being Bubba, he was so confident he could make the sale that I stretched the truth beyond its recognizability.  He said it was a little error that he apologized for and it wasn’t all that overwhelming.  Two other politicians made a slight error with the Klan and lived it down—Harry Truman and Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (who was a senator from Alabama).  But, Bubba, Bobby Byrd went whole hog—he became the state’s most visible leader of the Klan, Grand Wizard and Grand Cyclops.  In all, he was the most important Democratic leader to become identified with the Klan since Woodrow Wilson hosted the filming ofBirth of a Nation at the White House. The film, produced by D. W. Griffith, is a soaring cinematic tribute to the Klan.    

              Liberal journalist Margaret Carlson comes along with the cosmetician tray and says although it was a mistake, Byrd “grew” and “matured” on race. 

             As when in his 70s he gave that comment I referred to a few days ago about “white niggers,” huh, Margaret?  

                                     Steele.

            The Republican National Chairman’s accusation that the Afghanistan War is Obama’s and that a land war in Afghanistan can’t be won defies credulity.Obama’s war? Does this guy read the papers? At a time when Republicans in the Congress are supporting the military appropriation, here come this guy out of left field and sounds like a commentator for The Nation. 

             The sop that he will be out in 2011 really doesn’t hold water. This is a capital offense and should be dealt with by his being fired…else we get the reputation that nobody is steering the ship. Altogether too many things of this nature have happened…but this is the worst. 

            This Michael Steele thing was a botch job from the start. It was designed to be cute…Republicans always like to be cute on race. With a black Democratic president we’ll show the world that we’re sophisticated too and will trophy-out a black National Chairman!  Any idea that there’ll be a backlash involved in getting rid of him ignores the utter embarrassment and humiliating performance he has made as Chairman. And he is not above playing the race card for himself—as when he said offhandedly that both Obama and he have to measure up to a higher standard because both are black.  The ridiculous idea that he should be succeeded by Ken Blackwell of Ohio, another black, is barren. How about us just getting a good RNC chairman who’s interested in fund-raising and nuts and bolts?  

          Steele took the job to be considered for the national ticket as veep. Well it ain’t going to happen, Buster, so get packing.  The idea that the money coming in to the GOP coffers is due to Michael Steele is ridiculous.   The money is going in as everyone knows because contributors think we have a chance at winning…not because of the undisciplined, big spending, wholly indiscriminate leader of the GOP.  

        Not only is Steele off-base in pronouncing about foreign-defense policy, he is woefully ignorant of history.  After 9/11 George W. Bush started Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct. 7, 2001 because Afghanistan was not merely a source for terrorism but was a country run by terrorists with al-Qaeda woven into the regime.  An extensive coalition of governments offered help—70 nations contributing as allies.   So to say this war can’t be won plays into the hands of the Left.  

                                     No Self-Introspection. 

        No sooner did it appear that J.C. Hayward had a chance to dump old bait and switch McCain than it turns out Hayward did an info-mercial advising viewers how to scoop up free money from the federal treasury. 

        So that’s that. After 58 years in this business, I am still mystified that the possibility of scandal eludes candidates who want to get elected.  Didn’t Hayward reflect about that Info-Mercial? Who could vote for Hayward now?  

                       Obama Gives NASA Head His Priorities. 

          In case you’ve missed it, the head of NASA Charles Bolden gave an interview to Al Jazerra [sic] saying that President Obama gave him three missions…none of them touching on space exploration…but the most insisting that “I find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering. 

            Any doubts about the particular affiliations of this guy?  Or about his mind processes? It’s the most stupid concoction of psycho babble, Lefty rationalizations made by any president.   2012 can’t come fast enough for me.  I don’t know whether we can survive this bubble-headed Third World thinking.  You don’t have to prove where this guy was born.  He is the most dangerous president we have elected.  Dangerous because he gives the glossy finesse of being an intellectual but is at bottom a stupidly hopeless naïf. But mark my words, we have a lot to learn about this mystery man the people foolishly elected—facts that the supplicant press have almost criminally hushed up in a conspiracy with the Far Left. 

      ____________________________________________________

  Maria Goretti [1890-1902]. She was born in Corinaldo, a village 30 miles from Alcona, the daughter of a farm worker Luigi Goretti and his wife Assunta.  The family had five other children.  On a hot afternoon in July in 1902 she was alone and ironing when a randy neighbor, Alexander, 18 ran up the stairs to her apartment, beckoning her to the bedroom. He had tried this stuff  before so she resisted.  He seized her , pulled her in and shut the door. She struggled, tried to call for help but was unheard. Alexander ordered her to submit but she said she would rather die.  He pulled a long dagger and plunged it into her back and ran away.  In the hospital she showed concern for where her mother would sleep and even worried that by revealing details she would cause harm to his family. She died in 24 hours; he served 24 years in jail.  He became penitent and apologized to her family.  In 1947 she was declared Blessed by Pius XII in the presence of her mother and two siblings.  Three years later she was canonized  

Thoughts While Shaving: How Appropriate--Byrd Will Lie in the Senate...The Liberal Church for the Media.

   Feast of  The Precious Blood of Christ.*  

       

                             The Prince of Pomposity.

        When Robert Byrd came to the Senate in 1958 he told Lyndon Johnson that he’d be a good trooper…but he’d have to break with the prevailing Democratic majority on civil rights.  Supporting Johnson meant being full-speed ahead on the Vietnam War when Johnson became president and most measures of The Great Society. 

         Carrying himself like the ancient Cicero Byrd saw that he’d have to disinfect himself from the rabid nigra-hating segregationists with whom he allied to get to the Senate. So he executed a center-ward turn to accommodate the changing times, apologized for his being Grand Kleagel and Grand Cyclops of the Klan…but he kept a toe in the racist camp: voting against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall for the Supreme Court so he could retain a modicum of believability to continue to  jolly it up with his belly-up-to- the- bar-white flag-burning West Virginia crackers at the Legion and VFW halls  across the state. 

       As he aged he tried to become a trophy hero to the Left because he had owned up to his past. His staff was deeply engaged in the cosmetics and character rehab. But in 1996, his staff made a colossal mistake. They put him on live network TV.  That was a disaster. I saw the program. 

      Asked about his views on race, he said “My dear old mother once told me ‘Robert, you can’t get to heaven if you hate people all the time.’  So I just decided to skip talkin’ about it.  There are a lot of white niggers who talk about it all the time…they were then and are a lot around now. I seen a lot of white niggers on this issue so I just keep my mouth shut.”
       That took care of the promotion that his staff wanted to make of him as a colorful folksy old Senator Claghorn.   He was never interviewed on TV again. 

        With Lyndon Johnson dead, Byrd needed to bring himself up to a glorious standard as a liberal icon.  It was not hard to do. He opposed the Iraq War and spoke…his head shaking demonstratively with palsy and his fingers twittering…to the glory of the liberal media.  Believe me, that’s all it took!  He was converted overnight from a skeletal old relic with terminal shakes who would have to stand silent in the chamber to collect his thoughts slowed by near senility into a hero of the Constitution. While he had voted for the Gulf of Tonkin which his friend Johnson had contrived dishonestly to get votes, he now spoke out on the necessity of declaring war.   Katie Couric and all the trendy ones on network TV wanted him but his staff said…nope…uh-uh. They didn’t want his earlier views on white niggers to get out.  

            The  New York Times and the residue of what remains of the establishment press saluted him…and that’s why his body will lie in the Senate: no other reason. You can make a lot of  mistakes with the liberal media but if you target the one issue they’re most interested in at the time…opposition to the Iraq War and George W. Bush…, all is forgotten, forgiven, and never mentioned in any of the obituaries.   

                      Liberalism: the Substitute for Thought and Religion. 

           This is the thread that has continually pervaded this blog. 

            Ignorance of religion and the classics…constituting bad education from the multi-versities which were founded to set it right…has built up in this country a vapid liberalism of relativistic precepts…a liberalism that has polluted the wellsprings of much of contemporary journalism.  It is not only that many of the liberal journalists of today have abandoned religious verities for the shifting sands of uncertainty that run through their commentaries. 

           It is that the teachings of the elders of philosophy are not known as well.  Aristotle’s Politics begins with a division of what the great sage saw as varied governments.  Reviewing them we find it very refreshing in view of what we have in this country…or what we have allowed to transgress this country. 

          He says: There is a six-fold collection of governments. Now hold on to your seats. If one person rules for the common good, it is called kingly rule.   

         If one person rules for his own self-aggrandizement and cares not what happens to the country, it is called tyranny. 

        If few rule for the true common good, it is called an aristocracy. 

        If few rule for their own advantage it is called an oligarchy. 

        Listen now: 

        If many rule for the sake of the true common good, it is called a polity. 

      And if a majority rules for the sake of their own selfish aggrandizement, it is called a democracy. 

      Aristotle takes the view that a majority can be as foolish, insensitive or tyrannical as any tyrant or oligarch.  I think that is what we have here today.  

       Therefore he concludes  that unalloyed democracy is a perversion. 

      Which means that the continual pressure through most of the years of “progressivism” has created a democracy. The continual demands for “diversity” for new rights such as gay rights spring from those who are ignorant of both the classics and theology.   

       There is a flame-tressed female semi-media monopolist here who has not the slightest appreciation…not the slightest…for the  teaching of the ancients or the canons of theology.  I call her Apassionata van Leftward. Though approaching 60, her eyes shine with the true belief of the shining-faced college sophomore thrilled for more liberalism…which is to her, her church and her compact of governance.  

        When Lech Walesa came here…the living icon of an era that subordinated Soviet Communism forging a partnership with Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II…she was busily writing about…who? 

         Forrest Claypool.  Yes, Forrest Claypool.  

        When Alan Dershowitz came here…a renowned leader in the law…he came to endorse the Republican candidate for 9^th district congress.  He got not a line from her, Joel Pollak.  She’s far more engrossed in Jan Schakowky who wants to further level the playing field to purportedly further help the poor—no matter what it does to the country. 

          Apassionata van Leftward is not alone. The Washington bureau chief of The Sun-Times who has had the basics of a good reporter has abandoned that vocation in order to be nothing more than a stenographer for The Squid.  

        It will not do to be angry at them. They are in fact ignorant and victims of mal-education.  No sense of history, they are chasing the mechanical rabbit around the dog track, hoping…hoping…to catch it to make the world blemish-free and a haven for perfect social justice on earth. 

     _________________________________________________________

    *: Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Christ.  Though the Precious Blood of Christ has long been used as a synonym for the Redemption since the time of the Apostles, the feast was certified in the early 19^th century. The Church in fact rejoices in the celebration because it takes it as a kind of birthday—with the stream of blood and water pouring out all over the world. Chrysostom says: “It was therefore out of the side of Christ that the Church was built, just as it was out of the side of Adam that Eve was raised up to be his bride.”

Thoughts While Shaving: About that Crazed Sex Poodle…And Also About Elena Kagan.

                                   Gore.  

              I’ve held off commenting about the guy the 54-year-old lady massage therapist called “a crazed sex poodle,” the forty-fifth vice president of the United States, Al Gore. 

             Sex-crazed sex poodle he may be but he’s still boring. It shows you how wrong you can be in politics. If anybody qualifies for the title of “crazed sex poodle” is would be Bill Clinton: not Gore.  In fact I can’t fathom a man who looks less like a crazed sex poodle.  Oh wait. I can.  David Souter has all the wanton passion of a gerbil. People used to say he’s gay because he is a bachelor and lives even today in the heart of the New Hampshire woods with his mother. I don’t think so.  There are some people born without the vital juices, vital fluids that propel them to women: they’re not gay…but not unlike a bottle of 7-Up that’s been uncorked too long and ran out of fizz. 

              Initially I had two thoughts about Gore.   

              Here’s the first.   When he announced he was splitting from Tipper after 40 years this is what I told myself in time-honored 1940s Chicago idiom: 

          Listen, when a guy ditches his wife after that long a time, there’s got to be a tootsie involved.  That’s what I still think. And I’ll bet it’s Laurie David, the ex-wife of Larry, who steered Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to the screen and got him an award for it. At the Academy Awards, she looked up at him with that adulation that sickens me.  Utterly nauseates me.  But then I’m not a sex poodle.  She’s a middle-aged type with a deep Hollywood tan: no looker but a fine set of choppers.  Yet…shallow as a pie tin. She really believes this stuff about global warming and saving the planet. 

           The second thought I had was this: I doubted the masseuse’s tale because I thought she was trying to make some money off a purely spurious association…either blackmail…pay me $1 million or I’ll tell…or sell the story to The Enquirer for $1 million.  

            Now I’ve started to be persuaded that the masseuse can be on the level.  For one thing, Gore has confirmed that his 2006 schedule shows  he did arrange for her services in Oregon.  He’s so goofy he would try to become the Leader of the Free World he never made… and order her to do things no 54 year old self respecting woman would be asked to do.  

            Here’s how I rationalize it.  Gore was a strange one to begin with. Remember when he debated Bush and while Bush was making his statement, Gore walked up and stood next to him?  That was the weirdest event in presidential debates I ever saw.  Bush looked sidewise at him and said Hello!  Can I help you!   

           Just calculate how tough it is to lose any election…but especially one where you’ve defeated your opponent in popular votes.  You must have to rationalize it over and over. What could I have done to carry just a handful of electoral votes more than I got?  And especially Tennessee?  You drive your wife crazy with the “what if’s”  Tipper has a depression neurosis anyhow and hearing this over and over…maybe in bed in the middle of the night…is likely more than she could take. She probably said: 

          Listen, goddamit, what’s past is past, you got me? 
         But that’s not what he wants to hear.  He wants to hear this:

        Sweet love, you are indeed the most intellectual and astute leader of this planet.  I really think you’re second only to Jesus Christ.  No wait a minute! You’re ahead of Christ!  You’ve passed Him up!   You’re Number One.  He came here to save people with the qualification that they BELIEVE.  You are striving to save  the planet without qualification…whether the people on it believe you or not.   You are a man of destiny, vision!  No without a doubt you’re greater than Christ.  I feel it. I know it! 

          There is no wife who would say this because her tongue would stick to the roof of her mouth.  But a tootsie would say it.  Get me? Once she becomes his No. 2 wife she’d drop it but for now?  Yeah.  

          Just yesterday Gore spoke to 2,200 corporate human resource people in San Diego…but he took no questions. I think his choice of an audience is strange.  Human Resource people in corporations are those who you get sent to if in the estimation of your boss you need anger management…or if he’s had a complaint about your attitude or over-friendliness to women. Probably each of the 2,200 were sitting there no concentrating on global warming at all but speculating about this guy’s case management.  

                                        Kagan. 

                Talk about boring: that interminable Senate Judiciary session with Elena Kagan was stultifying.  But I don’t know why somebody doesn’t bring those sessions to life. 

                 By asking her this question: 

                Mme. Solicitor General…are you a lesbian? 

               The reason I’m asking you is this.  You have been identified with gay, lesbian, transgender issues for years…and you came to prominence as Dean of the Harvard Law School by fighting military recruiters come to your campus because you regard the military’s adherence to “Don’t ask, don’t tell” as an insult to gay closeted recruits. I will say parenthetically that you fought the military in this case unjustly because as a Law School Dean you should know that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule came from the Congress and was signed into law by Bill Clinton for whom you worked in the White House.  Now your president is trying to end that qualification and make mandatory the fullest of expression of gay people who want to join the military. 

              I take it you support him in this…the goal to encourage people to come out of the closet. For that reason I’m asking you to come out of the closet—if in fact you are in the closet.  You can tell us.  

             If it makes sense for people joining the military to declare whether or not they’re gay…it should make even more sense for people appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court for a lifetime term.   

             Thus I ask again: Are you a lesbian? You’re 50 years old and single. Not known for dating men.  When news of your appointment to the Court came out, a CBS reporter blurted out on the wire that your appointment would be the outing for a self-declared lesbian Justice.  Now the White House has denied you’re one but I think you should declare whether you are or not. 

              And before you respond: Let me tell you that a woman friend of yours…a former college roommate…said a remarkable thing. She said that you are not a lesbian but that you are so concerned about hurting the feelings of gays and lesbians that you don’t want to declare you are not which can be assumed by them that you are distancing yourself from them.  This I must say is an extraordinary rationalization but at this hearing we have been dancing around the central issue here.  And it has to do with your own sexual orientation. 

             You say with stunning untruth, let me say, that you did not try to block military recruiting at Harvard.  You most certainly did and you know you did. The only thing that called you off was the threat that Harvard would be penalized from receiving federal funds if the blockade went through.  So you compromised and used the Harvard Veterans group to sponsor it.  And this answer you gave earlier about not wanting to entertain a discrimination that is not consonant with Harvard’s own anti-bias rulings is bunk. Total bunk. You backed off and let the Veterans group handle it because you didn’t want to take the heat for Harvard’s losing its federal funds. 

             That being said…I invite you to tell us now: 

            Are you a lesbian?  

          Are you a practicing lesbian?  

         If you are a lesbian how you can rule on the Court concerning issues affecting gays and lesbians when you stand to benefit from such rulings as a lesbian?  I eagerly await your answer. 

Thoughts While Shaving: An Old Windbag at Last Runs Out of Wind…A Younger Windbag Will Strive to Make Gun Ownership Here Next to Impossible. More.

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul* 

       

                                     The Old Windbag.

      All this stentorian rhetoric about “the soul of the Senate has died” causes any objective student of that body to wretch.  U. S. Senator Robert Byrd had only one accomplishment: one. He knew the arcane Senate procedure well enough to bring so many federal installations paid for by taxpayers that the whole state is in danger of sinking into the ground.   Everything else…his legendary astuteness, his encyclopedic knowledge of Senate procedure which antedates to Rome, is baloney.  He postured as a constitutionalist and always carried in his breast pocket a copy of the Constitution.   How sensitive of him! Guardian of the Constitution, my eye. What he did for the Constitution aside from rasping its virtues is unclear.  

       Early in his career, he applied the maxim of George Washington Plunkett, the old faker who was a legend in the New York state Senate: “I seen my opportunities and I took `em.”   He saw himself standing like the oracle Cato against the line-item veto, the old crustacean saying “I will stand back here and let my bones crumble under me until I no longer have breath in me.  Such a process is a lethal…lethal…lethal aggrandizement of the chief executive’s role in the legislative process.  Lethal.  Deadly. It is a gross…gross…colossal distortion of the congressional power of the purse.  It is a dangerous proposition, a wolf in the sheep’s clothing of fiscal responsibility!”  The line-item veto would have enabled a president to block the old charlatan from hustling more money for his state which he carefully supervised would be dedicated to his name.  

        He made a pledge once that he would deliver $1 billion in federal grants in five years: he made it a reality in three years. So in West Virginia there is the Robert C. Byrd Highway…two Robert C. Byrd federal buildings…the Robert C. Byrd Freeway…the Robert C. Byrd Center for Hospitality and Tourism…the Robert C. Byrd Drive…and the Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center.

      So, it can be asked: What did that old faker know of fiscal responsibility? He never saw an appropriation he didn’t inflate.  The first day he entered the Senate he made a beeline like a flat-nosed hog to the trough under the sponsorship of Lyndon Johnson.   Careful not to antagonize his old racist roots, he led a filibuster against the 1964 civil rights bill.  He also voted against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall, the first black nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. 

         As a young hustler running for the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1944, he sent this letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.), the ranking black-hater in the Senate who was opposing integration of the military services.  

        “I shall never fight in the armed services with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”  

         Shortly after writing that letter, he was named Grand Wizard of the West Virginia Ku Klux Klan. 

         He was spectacularly wrong on most issues…but was okay on pro-life, okay on increasing missile defense. Opposed tax cuts because he couldn’t believe they would stimulate economic growth. Opposed the Iraq War because he couldn’t recognize that it was the first and only time in our battles with the Muslims that we struck back tellingly rather than taking it on the chin.   He led a crusade that probably contributed to the Democrats’ loss of the Senate in 2002.  One was his opposition to the bill setting up the Department of Homeland Security. That and his opposition to Iraq was used by Republicans to snare the Senate.   He never used the word filibuster but that’s what he did on Homeland Security until Joe Lieberman broke it. He stalled the Iraq War resolution insisting on a clause-by-clause debate until Tom Daschle made a wording change that caused Byrd’s motion to be ruled out of order. 

         The Old ex-Klansman tried a final time to cleanse his august senatorial robes by coming out for Barack Obama for president. He called the man who almost unarguably is the worst president whose very patriotism and lack of support of exceptionalism for America is suspect this: “He is a shining young statesman who possesses the personal temperament and courage to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history.”  

         Byrd’s opposition to the Iraq War caused him to be glorified by the liberal media.  You can always trust The New York Times to revere its own.  Two old Senate segregationists died in advanced age—Strom Thurmond at 100 and Byrd at 92.   The headline on the Thurmond story saidThurmond Dies, Foe of Desegregation.  The headline on Byrd’s was laudatory…in fact there wasn’t a mention in the obit of his Klansman days—just his fervent support of Obama for president. 

                             The Younger Windbag. 

       Immediately after the Supreme Court decision yesterday ratifying the 2^nd Amendment, the Younger Windbag…a man who cleaves to myth of gun control that ingratiates him to the Left…said the City Council will introduce legislation that will make it onerous and cumbersome to own a gun in Chicago. Thus Richard M. Daley who knows as well as anyone that gun control doesn’t work is groveling around for Left adulation heedless of whether his attempt to tie gun ownership in red tape will help people defend itself in a city where Daley’s own police department seems powerless to affect it. 

         Ah, gun control. That will gain him further kudos from Apassionata van Leftward aka the one-woman news monopolist (Sun-Times…Channel 5…Channel 11) Carol Marin whose passion burns unremittingly for all liberal causes and WTTW’s ring-bearer for same-sex marriage. 

                                Biden’s “Gaffes” Are More than That. 

       The liberal media of course don’t make much of the recurring statements from Joe Biden that are downright odd. The latest is that he called a Wisconsin grocer “a smart ass.”  The media, always keen on protecting Old Joe, keep on saying aw that’s Joe…rather profane. But he’s refreshing, don’t you think?  As when he embraced Obama on the passage of Health Care and whispered to him “This is a big f----- deal!”  

          No it’s not a case of Good Old Joe sounding off inappropriately. This guy has had two severe brain aneurisms, a highly precarious health record to be second in line for the presidency.     

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    *: Saints Peter and Paul.  What more can be said about these two? Peter was the first Pope and leader of the Apostles.  His original name was Cimon but Jesus gave him the name “Peter” which is Greek or “Cephas” which is the Aramaic equivalent.  Peter and Cephas means Rock. What made Jesus’ choice of significant is that until then neither  Peter nor “Cephas” was used as a man’s name. Peter was indeed a rock but not a paragon.  He was rebuked by Jesus for misinterpreting the Messianic mission (John 18:10). His impetuosity was shown in the Garden where he attacked Malchus but cutting off his ear with his sword.  He was humiliated when led by cowardice he denied Jesus in the courtyard.  But none of these things reduce the assignment he received when Jesus said: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” 

         Paul was the most dynamic of the Apostles even though he was not one of the original 12. His original name was Saul and his conversion on the road to Damascus is famous.  When he began to preach Christianity, as a former persecutor of Christians, it was awkward. Barnabas eased his way, introducing him to groups who were wary of him at first.  This was so effective that the Church in Antioch commissioned Barnabas as leader and Paul and Mark as assistants to take a missionary voyage through Cyprus, Pamphylia, Iconoium, Lystra and Derbe. It is hard to think of Paul as an assistant…but this back-seat role didn’t last long.  There was the famous dramatic confrontation between Paul and Peter. In Jerusalem Paul urged a more flexible concept of Christianity than that of a circumcised Old Law Jew.  All viewpoints were heard for Paul’s won the day. 

         The voyages of Paul are well known. Only the street smarts of his followers saved Paul’s neck time and time again. Especially venomous were the Jews in Jerusalem. Paul’s greatest epistles were written when he was under house arrest awaiting trial…and death came to him finally in Rome under Nero’s persecution by beheading.