Free Republic

Seeing how thrilled so many of my fellow Americans are that a black man -- even a half-black man -- is going to be on the presidential ballot in November I can’t help wishing I were one of them. It’s as if there’s a great big party taking place and I’m stuck outside with my nose pressed against a window. But, frankly, I don’t know what the hoop-de-do is all about.

I must confess I got a chuckle out of Barack Obama’s warning us all to lay off his wife. Sorry, pal, but it’s too late in the game for that. If you didn’t want her to be a legitimate target, you should have told her to stay home with the kids and to keep her yap shut...

I often find myself wondering how seemingly normal people ever wind up being criminal defense attorneys. When even Harvard law professor and one-time member of O.J. Simpson’s so-called dream team Alan Dershowitz claims that over 90% of all criminal defendants are guilty, why would any sane person want to devote his life to trying to spring hundreds, maybe even thousands, of felons?

By Burt Prelutsky If I am asked one question by my readers far more frequently than any other, it’s why do so many American Jews insist on aligning themselves with the far left. Believe me, being Jewish myself, it’s the question I most frequently ask myself. It’s certainly not because Jews are stupid, evil, unpatriotic or dependent on government handouts for their survival, four reasons that certainly explain why millions of my fellow Americans will eagerly line up to vote for any political crackpot so long as he or she is running as a Democrat. Having given it a great...

Barack Obama insisted that he was going to be the post-racial presidential candidate, the man who was going to bring us all together and make us forget our racial differences. It’s funny how that worked out. I guess he forgot to mention his master plan to his nearest and dearest. First, let us consider his wife, Michelle. If she is, as they say, his better half, I’d sure hate to see his other half.

Because California, and Hollywood in particular, have been the punch line for so many jokes over the years, I suspect that people who don’t live out here assume we can’t possibly be that wacky. They don’t know the half of it...

What makes liberals so endlessly fascinating isn’t just that they manage with a consistency that verges on the miraculous to be wrong on every important issue, but the latitude they extend to their political leaders to lie, cheat and steal. For instance, has any liberal ever questioned Al Gore’s apocryphal pronouncements about climate change in light of the fact that the man continues to live in a mansion and gad about in private jets? Now, thanks to Mr. Gore, we are having those new, terribly ugly light bulbs shoved down our throats. And if you think dealing with nuclear waste...

When I was very young, I felt that anyone who wasn’t a cynic was a naïve bumpkin. The young, after all, tend to be impatient with their elders, and I was certainly no exception. To the young, it’s a terrible failing to be gullible, and what they inevitably strive to be, or at least appear to be, is sophisticated...

I’ve been in the WGA for nearly 40 years. That means that during the first two decades of my TV writing career, I was on strike just about every three years. But the last time we struck was in 1988. That one lasted almost six months. It hurt the TV networks because they lost viewers they never got back. It hurt writers because most of us aren’t wealthy, and it’s difficult to go that long without earning a living. It even harmed people who aren’t in show business, but whose livelihoods depend on those who are...

Many people, knowing that I’m Jewish, have asked me if I was deeply offended by Ann Coulter’s observation that Jews are unperfected Christians. I could tell that I disappointed them when I said that I wasn’t even slightly upset. For one thing, I am not religious. What people do or don’t believe, theologically speaking, is none of my business, except in the case of Islamics who want the rest of us dead or at least kneeling to Mecca. But how is it my concern what people believe if it gets them through the bad times or it helps them to...

Liberals: A Puzzlement By Burt Prelutsky I'll come right out and admit that I understand Islamic terrorists far better than I do American liberals. After all, once you realize that young Muslims are taught by their religious leaders that our nation is militarily powerful and technologically advanced because we cut a deal with Satan, you can see where they'd be upset with us. But what is the deal with liberals? How to explain their mushy heads? Was it something weird in their baby formula? Were they potty-trained when they were too young or, more likely, too old? Or is it...

Most people would include compassion on the short list of human virtues. At one point, I would have been one of those people. But, no longer is that the case. Like so many other things, it has taken on a far different meaning in recent times. In the past, compassion was extended to the elderly, the abused, the innocent and the infirm. But during the last few decades, it has become an entitlement demanded by members of various voting blocs. In short order, it has been transformed into political currency doled out by political hacks trolling for votes. But as...

Lately, I’ve been reading even more books than usual about a period that’s always fascinated me; namely, the late 40s and early 50s, the time of the Hollywood blacklist. It was the time of what liberals labeled witch hunts. A funny thing, though, is that the hunting of witches is not such a bad thing if you’ve got a coven of them causing trouble. Which is exactly what the Communists were doing in the 30s, 40s and 50s. And while I don’t think the idiots in Hollywood were anywhere near as dangerous as the Reds in the State Department or...

Recently, a friend wondered if John Edwards might not be the biggest hypocrite in our nation’s political history. I was taken aback. With so many Democrats vying for the honor, is it possible that the poster boy for the Hair Stylists of America, a man who’s held office for a scant six years, could beat out a bunch of seasoned veterans who’ve been in the public eye for several decades? If so, it could be the biggest upset since Truman bested Dewey back in 1948. For those questioning why I immediately dismissed Republicans from the competition, it’s because when it...

Where politics and politicians are concerned, I believe that cynicism should always be the order of the day. Politics is the world of the possible, not the best possible world. The way I see it, whoever runs against Hillary Clinton deserves to win. So far as I'm concerned, those Republicans who threaten to stay home on Election Day in 2008 if their personal favorite isn't the nominee, just so they can self-righteously claim they didn't violate their principles, are beneath contempt. Cutting off your nose to spite America is not commendable. It's my conviction that anyone who permits this country...

Because I'm convinced that, come November of 2008, Hillary Clinton will be the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, so I think it's particularly important that the Republicans nominate Rudy Giuliani. I will admit that I have been waiting to see if Fred Thompson was going to toss his hat in the ring, but I finally got sick and tired of waiting. The guy's about 6-foot-5 and probably weighs 280; which doesn't hurt when he's portraying a New York City D.A., but he's simply not cut out to play a coquette. There are other attractive candidates in the GOP, but...

In the old days, it seems to me, people went in far more for predicting the future. Whether it was Da Vinci’s foreseeing flying machines, Jules Verne’s envisioning Imagine if a modern-day Rip Van Winkle suddenly woke up after an extended snooze, and everywhere he turned, he’d be confronted with the frivolous, the inane and the downright goofy. It’s not just the fact that such complete ninnies as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, are serving as role models for young girls or that people as obnoxious and as contemptuous of America as Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Moore and Jimmy...

Some people used to refer to Ronald Reagan as the Teflon President because no matter how much mud his political foes threw at him, nothing stuck. That was because he was so much wiser, more principled, charming and charismatic, than his left-wing detractors. These days, those who seem to come equipped with Teflon are the world’s Islamics. What’s so mystifying about this is that they share none of Reagan’s finer qualities. Theirs is a religion which calls for the domination of all others, and yet the majority of Christians, Jews, atheists and agnostics, continue treating them with the utmost respect...

Monday, July 9, 2007 If he were alive today, John Wayne would have just celebrated his hundredth birthday. Actually, if he hadn’t made the worst movie of his career, “The Conqueror,” he might well have made it to the century mark. In that movie, Wayne appeared as Genghis Khan, joining the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Paul Muni, Mickey Rooney, Louise Rainer, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Huston and Alec Guinness, on the list of movie greats who should have had second thoughts before agreeing to portray Asians. In case you’re wondering how that dreadful 1956 movie shortened the Duke’s life, it was...

Many years ago, there was a popular radio quiz show called "20 Questions." The challenge faced by the panelists was to come up with the identity of a person, place or object. All they were told in advance was whether that something was animal, vegetable or mineral. I have my own list of questions that I suspect would have stumped even the resident experts, Fred Van De Venter, Florence Rinard, Johnnie McPhee and Herb Polesie. To begin with, why do basketball fans go berserk whenever a player dunks a basketball? Considering that the height of the basket has remained 10...

The other day, I had an argument with someone over the out-sourcing of American jobs. It was his contention that anything that promoted capitalism around the globe was a good thing while I contended that even though capitalism was the best economic system ever invented, if only because it didn’t make the fatal error of idealizing human nature, it had its failings. One of its more obvious flaws is that it encourages corporate executives, for the sake of their own stock portfolios, to sacrifice the jobs of decent, hard-working Americans. Where I come from, profits do not trump patriotism...

Those of us on the right side of the political spectrum are so very aware of media bias that we are always shocked when our friends and associates on the left fail to recognize or acknowledge it. Recently, I had an exchange with an L.A. Times editor who insisted that his newspaper set the absolute standard for honest and objective reporting. I asked him how it was, if that were the case, that among my wide circle of acquaintances, I didn’t know a single liberal who thought the Times was conservative and didn’t know a single conservative who wasn’t convinced...

Recently, a friend of mine announced that dogs don't have souls. Inasmuch as I nearly always agree with her, I found it surprising that we were in opposing camps on this particular subject. Because I respect her opinion, I found myself questioning my own belief system somewhat more than usual. Is it possible, I asked myself, to have four legs, a tail, fleas and a soul? While I'm not absolutely certain what souls are, I finally decided that if they are what I think they are, dogs definitely have them...

There are two jobs I often find myself daydreaming about. One of them is being a radio talk-show host. The other is being president of the United States. Between the two, there are far more downsides to being the commander in chief. In fact, the main upside to my being president is that I'm the only person I know with whom I agree on all the major issues. On the negative side of the ledger, there's the weather in Washington, D.C. Living, as I do, in Los Angeles, I'm accustomed to wearing tennis shorts the year round. On top of...

Living in L.A., as I do, I don’t have wonderful choices when it comes to my local newspapers. There’s the parochial Daily News, which focuses its attention on the San Fernando Valley. This is fine, if you happen to be more interested in the war on potholes than the war on Islamic terrorism. The alternative rag is the L.A. Times. They slant the news so far to the left, the words almost slide off the page. A person could easily jump to the conclusion that the entire editorial board cut their teeth on Pravda and the Daily Worker. Instead of...

I never wanted to be the President of the United States. And, quite frankly, I don’t understand why so many other people are anxious to move all their stuff into the White House. For me, the downsides far out-weigh the benefits, and I just wonder if all those folks who’ve tossed their hats into the ring have really given it enough thought. Granted, on the plus side, if fame is what they seek, being president would make them even better-known than being a finalist on “American Idol.” Also, there’s no getting around the fact that presidents don’t have to wait...

The other day, a friend of mine asked me why I thought those on the left hate guns so much. My initial reaction was to acknowledge that I have a tough time getting a handle on anything liberals say or think or do. It all seems wacky to me. What’s more, I have no idea who compiles their playbook, although we are quite aware that they have one. It’s where they get all their talking points. For instance, we know that liberals favor affirmative action, although at the same time we also know they like to say that where race...

I have a friend who could very well be a speechwriter for Barack Obama. Although I consider her a liberal, I'm sure she regards herself as a moderate. To prove it, she makes a point of condemning politicians of both parties as partisan hacks. Actually, with precious few exceptions, I agree with her. However, she likes to say she wishes that those on the Left and those on the Right could put their differences aside and come together for the sake of the country. It sounds so nice and reasonable, just like the bilge coming out of one of Sen....

Years ago, I recall reading about an election in Great Britain. One of the candidates had been recently let out of an insane asylum. Apparently, upon one’s release back into society, at least in those days, you were presented with the equivalent of a diploma, a paper certifying that you were cured of your mental disorder. As I remember, this fellow was elected by a constituency that could proudly boast they were represented by the only certifiably sane member of Parliament. As I look around at all the candidates who have decided that they and they alone are fit to...

...of all the addictions one could have, I would think the one with the strongest stranglehold would be chocolate...

...I think the worst thing that happened to the movies was the 1960s. That was the first decade in the history of the world in which parents wanted to grow up to be just like their children, thus turning the natural order of things on its head...

I never thought I'd live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. You think it hasn't? Then why is it that people are being prevented from saying it in polite society for fear that it will offend? Schools are being forced to replace "Christmas vacation" with "winter break" in their printed schedules. At some major retail chains, the word is verboten, replaced as a matter of policy by the generic Happy Holidays. Carols, even instrumental versions, are banned in certain locales. A major postal delivery service has not only made their drivers doff their Santa caps,...

I'm going to share a recent experience I had that will help explain why I hold most politicians, including even those with whom I agree on most issues, in such low regard...

The first principle of the Hippocratic Oath, which all physicians are sworn to abide by, is: Do no harm. I don’t want to be regarded as a nitpicker, but, as standards go, I’d say that’s a pretty measly one. Do no harm?! For crying out loud, Boy Scouts at least have to be prepared. Soldiers are expected to be all they can be, and while I think we’d all agree that’s pretty vague as to specifics, the basic tone suggests that courage and self-sacrifice could well be part of the job description...

If there is any among you who still thinks the mass media isn't in the pocket of the Left, you merely have to compare how the Plame affair went from being the biggest scandal since Capt. Dreyfuss to a non-story once the crime couldn't be laid at the feet of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. Of course, inasmuch as Valerie Plame was not an undercover operative, it was never a big deal. But once it turned out that Clinton colleague Richard Armitage was Shallow Throat, the media buried the story back among the classified ads. Liberals who are aware that...

As I sit here, Mark Foley has just checked himself into rehab for, of all things, alcoholism. Which strikes me as very peculiar, seeing as how he wasn't forced to resign from Congress for drunk driving. If he's trying to suggest that he isn't a pervert, I'm afraid most of us will remain unconvinced. Heaven knows that when I was younger, I often got awfully goofy when I drank, but the booze never made me hanker after 16-year-old guys. But I guess you can't blame Foley for trying to bamboozle us. After all, he's just another in a long line...

Whenever I hear my fellow conservatives talk about sitting out the election in November, I want to grab them and shake them until their teeth rattle. Anything that puts Democrats even an inch closer to appointing federal judges should be more than enough reason to get every right-winger off the couch and down to his polling place. In case you think I'm engaging in election year hyperbole, consider Judge Stephen Roy Reinhardt. He has been the mainstay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for the past quarter of a century, ever since Jimmy Carter foisted him...

Recently, I posted a piece "Jihad This!" in which I stated that the time for political correctness had long since passed and that, at least so far as I was concerned, America’s entire Muslim population was suspect. For one thing, large numbers of them continued to wire funds to terrorist organizations even after 9/11, and instead of speaking out against their fellow Islamics or placing a reward on Osama bin Laden’s head, they bellyache about racial profiling. Frankly, I expected that a lot of people were going to take me to task for denouncing millions of our fellow Americans. That...

I no longer accept that we are only at war with Islamic fascists or Islamic fundamentalists or whatever the heck we’re calling them this week. I believe that we in the West are at war with Islam, period. I have heard any number of politicians, up to and including President Bush, claim, contrary to all reason and evidence, that Islam is a religion of peace. If you buy that load of malarkey, I’ve got a Brooklyn mosque I’d like to sell you. This is the religion that was founded by the violence-prone Mohammed fourteen hundred years. It was he who...

I hate bullies. Always have, always will. Because I was younger and smaller than my classmates in grammar school, I have been aware of them for a great many years. You might even say I’ve made a study of them. One of the things I’ve uncovered is that occasionally size isn’t the determining factor; meanness is. In some families, for instance, it’s the smallest person who turns out to be the biggest bully. Lacking size and strength, he depends on guile. What he does is provoke his larger sibling by constantly annoying him, knowing full well that if his big...

People are always writing books about the fall of great civilizations. The historians point to various things as indicators that a bad end was inevitable. Everything from over-extension of the military to corrupt politicians to all-male bathhouses have been credited with bringing on the collapse of various powerhouses. In the case of America, I think our decline began with the rise of the euphemism...

Pat Buchanan's Rampage By Burt Prelutsky Pat Buchanan, not satisfied merely looking like a Herblock depiction of a bigot, a man who never allows an opportunity to slam Israel slip through his fingers, has been on a rampage because Israel has finally gone after the murderous thugs and sadists of Hezbollah. The fact that the terrorists don't wear uniforms means that every time the Israelis kill one of them, Buchanan and his ilk get to insist that Israel is targeting civilians. Buchanan's concern for civilians isn't nearly so evident when it's Jews who are targeted by Hamas, Hezbollah and the...

Ann Coulter certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest when she accused the so-called Jersey Girls of wallowing in their widowhood. Tim Rutten, the resident media critic for the L.A. Times, accused Coulter of being cruel and tasteless. He was so outraged by what she had written and said about the quartet that, in a frenzy of self-righteousness, he then went on to describe her as a gaunt 45-year-old, an “ingénue with fangs,” and summed up her appeal as pornographic, likening it to “black leather and Nazi paraphernalia” which “have a kind of iconic status in the sadomasochistic subcultures inclined toward...

Not too long ago, David Irving was sentenced to three years in an Austrian jail for claiming that the Holocaust never happened. Although I am usually in favor of harsh sentences even for those people who insist on honking their car horns while driving through tunnels, I was against throwing Irving's butt in the slammer. For some time now, the shmoe has made his living by writing and speaking on the subject. One of his goonier notions is that the concentration camps were erected after the end of World War II to serve as tourist attractions. Irving isn't the only...

understand that George Bush and his Republican colleagues think they can have it both ways with this so-called guest-worker program. Well, they can't. Gussy it up any which way you like, it's still amnesty. And like Reagan's amnesty program of '86, it will be another disaster for America. Either the GOP is for more and more Mexicans coming across the border or they're not. But they should be warned that, if it's the former, they run the very real risk of eliminating themselves as a major political party. Even though I realize that taking a strong, principled stand on this...

The way that so many people, especially politicians, went nuts over the ports deal reminded me once again what a difference party designation makes. One only has to compare how harshly Sam Alito was treated during his confirmation hearings with the way that the ACLU’s chief counsel, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, sailed through hers. Getting back to the matter of the ports, I’m still not sure if it was a good idea or a bad one to allow the United Arab Emirates to manage those installations on the east coast. But I’m awfully curious why some of those same people who...

...Having been divorced twice, I recognize that all marriages are not made in heaven. Some, in fact, seem to have been cobbled together in Dr. Frankenstein’s basement. Speaking from experience, there are perfectly good reasons for certain unions to be dissolved. But, for the life of me, I can not come up with a single decent excuse for adultery. Frankly, I regard adulterers as lying, contemptible sleazebags. I can’t begin to imagine how they live with themselves, let alone their mates. Even the terminology is distasteful, unless, unlike most of us, you don’t mind being a cheater...

Back when Bill Clinton was leaving his mark on history by leaving his mark on Monica Lewinsky's dress, one of the most aggravating aspects of the entire shabby episode was having our nation being patronized by the European media. As usual, the snidest commentary came to us courtesy of the French. They were like 80 million cats lapping up cream. Our alleged lack of sophistication is like food and drink to them. They couldn't stop snickering over our bourgeois value system. After all, their premier had a mistress. What real man didn't? It's to be expected. Only people as backward...

The other day I was listening to a talk radio show, and heard a caller announce that there’s no freedom of speech in this country, that, because of the fascistic administration in Washington, people are afraid to criticize the government. His proof was that Cindy Sheehan had been rebuked for merely exercising her constitutional right to mouth off against authority figures. The show’s host correctly pointed out that the 1st Amendment guarantees her freedom to speak her mind, such as it is, but that doesn’t in any way curtail the right of other Americans to call her an idiot. What...

Those poor, poor perverts By Burt Prelutsky Mar 25, 2006 I can nearly, but not quite, understand why some people object to capital punishment. After all, if they’re unaware that Thou Shall Not Kill is a bad translation of Thou Shall Not Murder, you can see where they might wind up believing that the execution of a serial killer is as sinful as the original crime. Of course I happen to think that, at this late date, there’s no excuse for a grown-up not having bothered to find out what the sixth commandment actually says. That’s especially the case if...