We all know that liberals hate mascots, at least mascots like the Final-Four bound University of Illinois’ Chief Illiniwek, because they are “insensitive” to the feelings of Native Americans. I have observed, though, that far from hating mascots, most liberals enthusiastically enlist mascots to perform the function that their intellectual bankruptcy makes impossible, persuading an unsuspecting public. From Matthew Shepard to Christopher Reeve and now Terri Schiavo, they use personal tragedies to make the emotional arguments that put the ‘dem’ in demagoguery.
Many people were shocked, but delighted, on Monday when, fresh from that train wreck of an interview with Michael Jackson on his radio show (who knew that the Reverend had a radio show?), Jesse Jackson insinuated himself into the Terri Schiavo case, albeit at the request of Terri’s parents.
I was not surprised in the least. Given his well-known affinity for television cameras, the surprising thing is not that Jesse showed up. I always assumed that his pager goes off any time even one cable news truck, even MS-NBC’s, shows up at an event. The surprising thing is that it took him so long.
Before you accuse me of the corrosive cynicism that I so often lament on the air, I am willing to allow that Jesse Jackson, just like Tom DeLay, is not motivated by politics, at least not entirely. I don’t doubt their sincere belief that it is immoral and unnecessary to kill an innocent disabled woman.
Jesse Jackson is not the only one of the usual leftwing suspects to take this position. Consider this statement from Ralph Nader, who at 70 years of age, may have a little more understanding than many about what’s really going on here:
"This is an innocent human being whose death is being ordered on flimsy partisan hearsay when she has no preferences. It's a slippery slope -- a very, very dangerous slippery slope, where more and more life is being devalued."
Ralph Nader, Washington Times, 3/30/05
There’s also Tom Harkin and 47 House democrats, who supported the Palm Sunday legislation to give the Schindlers’ the same access to the federal courts enjoyed by ACLU-represented convicted murderers.
So while I don’t question his motives, I also don’t believe that Jesse didn’t think about politics. Let’s face it. Like Tom DeLay, he is a politician. They eat, drink and breathe politics. It’s what they do! They can’t help thinking of it in every situation, and I don’t doubt that they both did so in this one. So I suspect there is more to Jesse Jackson’s involvement than laudable motive of defending the transcendent desire to protect the sanctity of life or the base media whoring for which he’s so well-known.
So what’s Jesse’s game?
The easy and obvious answer is that he hopes to use this case to increase his political influence with a view to shaking down the Democratic party in the next election cycle. Over and above his usual race-mongering act, his involvement in this case has the additional benefit of enhancing Jesse’s credentials as bridge builder to those knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, right-wing, red state Christian “values” voters that have Hillary Clinton making speeches about reaching out to pro-lifers. Jesse’ ability to speak to this constituency has got to be worth at least a few thousand a month and maybe even access to Howard Dean’s corporate jet (or is that anti-corporate jet?)
That’s just the icing on the cake, though. The real hidden agenda here is to use Terri Schiavo the way that liberals used the senior citizens that they placed on the stage last month at that phony town meeting at Pace University, or the firefighter in the new People for the American Way ad designed to mislead everyone about the democrats attempt to unilaterally amend the U.S. Constitution by way of the filibuster; that is, as a mascot. Jesse Jackson hopes that Terri Schiavo can become the Matthew Shepard of socialized medicine.
Pay attention to the Reverend Jackson’s statements this week about Terri Schiavo and it will be very clear.
“She is not brain-dead. She is brain-impaired. All her vital signs are working. And to cut off food and water is heartless. And we have—I think the Congress getting involved was the wrong thing to do, to impose its role on the judiciary. I think that was wrong. But I think that the moral and ethical dilemma here, maybe the lesson we learn from this tragedy is for the Congress to do what it ought to do, which is long-term health care for all Americans.
That‘s what Congress can do. That‘s its level of operation. Out of this, we should derive a real commitment, a renewed commitment to long-term health care for all Americans.”
Jesse Jackson, Scarborough Country, MS-NBC, 3/28/05
Shortly after the election, Democrats began a propaganda campaign designed to confuse the illogical, the ignorant and the logically-challenged about the difference between Christian charity and government confiscation at the point of a gun. Speaking to an audience at Tufts University on November 10, Hillary Clinton herself said “No one can read the New Testament of our Bible without recognizing that Jesus had a lot more to say about how we treat the poor than most of the issues we were talking about in this election.” (Boston Herald, 11/11/04)
Sure. because we all remember how the Good Samaritan really worked for the federal government. Lately we’ve seen some leftist minister named Jim Wallis all over tv, from “Meet the Press” to “The Daily Show,” suggesting that democrats will win as soon as they change the subject from their record as the tax-and-spend, anti-military, terrorist-enabling, criminal-coddling, political-correctness-loving losers they are to talking about how unChristian it is that “40 million (or whatever number they make up this week) Americans don’t get health care,” a fact that will be big news to the doctors and nurses at our crowded emergency rooms.
Now that Terri Schiavo has passed on I’m sure that even committed secular humanists believe that she has everlasting life as a prop in their relentless attempt to foist more socialism on the rest of us.
“It is particularly hypocritical when you have people who say they advocate on the Defense of Marriage Act who now insert themselves between a husband and his wife.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), Chicago Tribune, 3/21/05
“As for killing his wife, that’s his business—but for killing that child, well, he gots to suffer for that.”
Convicted murderer and Scott Peterson’s fellow San Quentin death row inmate Ricardo “Richie” Roldan, New York Post, 3/20/05
On Friday, March 18, 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times ran the following story,”Cops question husband after wife found beaten to death in River Forest,” about the recent murder of Therese Pender by her estranged husband. He allegedly used a 15 1/2 inch cross peen hammer to take her life. She had escaped from her abusive marriage only two months earlier, after three years of terror inflicted by her unemployed mope husband. Ms. Pender was a legal secretary for well-known father’s rights advocate Jeffrey Leving. He told the Sun-Times that “the man took Pender’s money to buy his own meals and would not let her eat.”
Perhaps this guy should contact Rep. Wasserman and any number of the democrats I watched in open-mouthed shock on C-SPAN late into the night and into the early morning of Monday, March 21, 2005, as they railed against their hypocritical opponents who were battling to preserve the life of Terri Schiavo. What a great defense—starving your wife is part of a man’s “right of privacy,” one of those rights that the Supreme Court discovered in that mysterious emanation from that crazy penumbra! That’s even better than the Mark McGwire “I don’t want to talk about the past. I’m here to be positive” routine.
It’s too bad that Rep. Wasserman can’t ask Laci Peterson or Therese Pender which ranks higher on the sanctity totem pole, the sanctity of marriage or the sanctity of life. It’s also too bad that Mr. Pender can’t get all the dems in Congress who opposed federal intervention in the Schiavo case, along with Mr. Roldan, of course, on his jury.
Dateline MANILA, Philippines Mar 16, 2005 — The brutal Abu Sayyaf group repeatedly has been declared a spent force, only to bloodily resurrect itself the latest time in a botched jail break that left 27 dead and sparked fears of retaliation by al-Qaida-linked terrorists.
“Phillipine Militants Threaten Retaliation”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=584883
Ah yes, our old friends from Abu Sayyef, “al-Qaida linked” terrorists if we ever saw them. Reading about them again this week inspired me to dig up this item from two years ago, “Is Iraq ‘Outsourcing’ Violence?” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2003, p. A 15. I remember talking about it on the air back when I had the Saturday night show. I found the crumpled dead tree version in a file.
While surfing around to see if I could find it on line, I found this excellent summary in a posting from someone named RG Providence:
“It [the WSJ article] describes the case of Abdul Karim Jassim Bidawi, who upon his arrest in the Phillipines began eating the memory chip from his cell phone. Obtained from the chip were the names of 9 suspected Iraqi intelligence agents and ties to Iraqi diplomats including one the Phillipines had expelled from the country for his work with Abu Sayyaf. Some of the numbers also just happened to be on another cell phone recovered by Zamboanga authorities last October. Where did that phone come from? It was wired to a bomb in a catholic shrine which failed to detonate.
Among his terrorist activities, Bidawi was involved in the plot to blow up several transpacific flights in the 90's and assassinate the Pope, both conceived by al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. KSM is also the MASTERMIND OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS, and his nephew Ramzi Yousef was convicted for the '93 WTC bombing. This means we have Hussein controlling Iraqi diplomats and Iraqi agents who work with Bidawi who answers to the 9/11 mastermind, KSM. So can you really be sure there's no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda? Give me a break. Connections among terrorists are complicated, but this is exactly the kind of "connecting the dots" people complained the CIA wasn't doing in 2001.”
http://www.command-post.org/oped/2_archives/001760.html
Precisely.
A rare outbreak of common sense came over the Illinois House earlier this week. Legislators had been considering some boneheaded proposal, similar to one introduced in the Illinois Senate by Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-there’s a shock-Cicero) that would designate 10 dog breeds “dangerous.” No doggy due process. You’re a pit bull, so you’re dangerous. Talk about invidious discrimination! Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and now the law will focus on penalizing irresponsible owners who let their dogs run wild and do not spay or neuter them. To his credit, Sen. Sandoval has said he’ll drop his idea and go with something a little more in line with his oath to uphold the Constitution, which the last time I checked still allows citizens the right of private property. Yes, pets are technically property, except maybe in San Francisco where I think city ordinances allow your dog to sue you if you don’t provide a suitable home an a designated number of treats per day.
It’s not easy for liberals, you must understand, to succumb to common sense. The very idea of holding individuals responsible rather than dumb animals or inanimate objects rubs them the wrong way, since it’s obvious to them that the average American is incapable of taking care of himself. If he could, we wouldn’t need to throw our money down a series of social program rat holes and otherwise protect people from the consequences of their own free choices.
I was heartened to see someone in the legislature realize that it’s wrong to infringe on the freedom of the law-abiding to try to control the criminal. Dare I hope that this common sense outbreak will have a spillover effect as the legislature considers letting Illinois join the rest of the country and allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons? Freedom is on the march in the Middle East. It can't come soon enough to Illinois.
It’s not easy for liberals, you must understand, to succumb to common sense. The very idea of holding individuals responsible rather than dumb animals or inanimate objects rubs them the wrong way, since it’s obvious to them that the average American is incapable of taking care of himself. If he could, we wouldn’t need to throw our money down a series of social program rat holes and otherwise protect people from the consequences of their own free choices.
I was heartened to see someone in the legislature realize that it’s wrong to infringe on the freedom of the law-abiding to try to control the criminal. Dare I hope that this common sense outbreak will have a spillover effect as the legislature considers letting Illinois join the rest of the country and allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons? Freedom is on the march in the Middle East. It can't come soon enough to Illinois.
Sometimes my listeners and I speculate about how the Democrats are able to continue their many disinformation campaigns unchallenged. After reading Lynn Sweet’s column today, I have some insight about that. The only question is whether Ms. Sweet, who claims that her column is a “guide to sort through the debate” knows that she is misstating the facts about Social Security or is acting out of ignorance and confusion.
“Social Security is an insurance program, guaranteeing defined retirement, disability and survivor benefits. Private accounts do not offer a guaranteed return. Private accounts alone do not solve the long-term financial uncertainties facing Social Security.”
Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, 2/28/05
Nonsense. Social Security is NOT an insurance program.
Social Security is a pay-as-you-go ponzi scheme that Congress is free to modify or even abolish at will. The Supreme Court held in 1960 that we have no individual right to these benefits, nor any claim because we paid into the system. There is no “lock box,” or trust fund, nor are the “contributions” confiscated from workers’ paychecks anything other than taxes. The only guarantee about Social Security is that when there is a surplus, Congress is guaranteed to spend it on something other than Social Security. Even if the return from a personal account would not be one dime more than the schedule benefits under the current system, the need for personal accounts is obvious, for one reason: unless each individual taxpayer has a property interest in these “contributions” there is no guarantee that they will be one penny waiting when retirement comes.
Ms. Sweet then writes: “If nothing is done, up until 2042, everyone gets everything they are promised today, including cost-of-living increases.”
Perhaps, assuming that the children in grade school and high school today will be happy with having 75-80% of their incomes funneled directly to retirees that they don’t know. More likely, though, the generational warfare that results will at a minimum pressure Congress to do what it has always resisted for political reasons, means-test Social Security, in effect turning into another welfare program. The indigent will get benefits. Those who have had the foresight and discipline to save for their own retirement will become living examples of the old adage that “no good deed goes unpunished” when they are told that their “contributions” have been spent long ago.
Part of me would like to go along with the Democrats disinformation campaign and proceed the way President Clinton did on this issue, stating unequivocably that something must be done, but then doing nothing. Then this worthless ponzi scheme would collapse as it should, but I keep bumping up against the immorality of the government’s deceit, as it tells telling younger workers that their money is being held in safekeeping for their retirement. If Enron tried to get away with this sort of scheme, everyone from the CEO to the janitor would be packed off to prison. Speaking of corporate bad guys, perhaps Ms. Sweet should ask Senators Durbin and Obama, or Rep. Schakowsky, how they can justify wailing about the outrage of corporate malfeasance while all the while being active participants in government deception.