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Those early seasons aren’t as good as I remember, they’re better.  Not every episode’s a home run, the first dozen or so struggle in search of the tone and pace that will eventually define the series, but afterwards nothing but a few drop below a standing triple — easily better than 99% of movies produced this decade. 

Not to take anything away from the excellent work done by the rest of the cast, but the heart and soul of those first four seasons, what elevates the series into something truly unique and special, is Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Michael Moriarty’s outstanding portrayal of Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone — a brilliant and fascinating character whose moral center anchors the show.

With his Charlie Brown face, slightly wrinkled off-the-rack suits and awkward 6’ – 4” frame, there’s nothing flashy or charismatic about Ben Stone … until he opens his mouth. Authority is immediately commanded thanks to a deep resonant voice, a sharp mind and a fortified set of principles based upon a respect for the law he knows so well and an unwavering dedication to truth.

Stone is a complicated character in the best sense of the word when it comes to fictional drama. Politics, liars and felons repulse him, but he still very much respects the role the defense attorney must play in order for our system to work. He probably couldn’t be one, but as arrogant as most of them are (the insufferable defense counsel is a L&O staple), Stone understands that they have a duty to exploit and game every advantage. He also relishes defeating them and while doing so uses the word “sir” like Ali used his jab.   

There might be a photograph of Robert Kennedy hanging prominently in his office, but what makes Stone such a principled and memorable character is that when it comes to his work, he’s completely apolitical. Justice is his only agenda. Throughout the series hints are dropped as to Stone’s personal political beliefs. For instance, we learn that he’s a Roman Catholic opposed to both the death penalty and abortion, and that after they defended the Nazis in Skokie, Stone ended his association with the ACLU. You get a sense he’s a liberal in the best sense of that word (Civil Rights, equal application of the law…), but he’s no Leftist.

I didn’t always agree with everything Stone did, but I certainly respect and admire him, and as the series rolled into Moriarty’s fourth and final one (he left over a dispute involving then Attorney General Janet Reno), the writers knew the actor was leaving and subtly laid the pipe to make sense of Stone’s eventual resignation. This is when the character really came alive and the conflict between a deeply principled man working in a inherently political system built on deal-making came to a breaking point.

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In “Sanctuary,” one of the best episodes of television you’ll ever see, Stone prosecutes a young black man caught on videotape beating a white man to death during a race riot. Leftist racial politics hit Stone from every possible angle — the media; the young man’s defense attorney, Shambala Green (played by the superb Lorraine Toussaint); his own boss, District Attorney Adam Schiff (the excellent Steven Hill); and a race-hustling Reverend Ott who threatens to burn-baby-burn if there’s no acquittal. Stone, however, will have none of it and presses on with only justice on his mind. Fearing the racist Reverend, Schiff wants to deal and compromise. Stone’s response epitomizes a moral clarity we may never see on network television again:  “So you’re guilty until a percentage of the population threatens violence?”

With her client caught dead to rights, Green pulls every race card in the book and eventually settles on an absurd diminished capacity defense. She finds an “expert” to testify that her client isn’t legally responsible for his actions due to a psychological disorder triggered by mob violence called “group contagion.”

Stone destroys this “expert” with a single question: “So I assume you’d have to have the same feeling about a crowd of good ole’ boys … a tree, a noose, and a dead black man in Mississippi.”

The real showdown, however, occurs between Stone and Green after hours in a diner:

Green
Between you and me, Ben, as a black woman I’m ashamed of what happened on that street.

Stone
Are you? You have a helluva way of showing it.

Green
You don’t get it do you? I don’t want that to happen again.

Stone
No, you don’t get it. By infantilizing your own people, you are guaranteeing it will happen again.

Green
After all these years, you really had me fooled. I had no idea your sort of liberalism only came out of the closet when it was fashionable.

Stone
Shambala, just once I want someone to stand up in this country and say ‘I did it. I’m responsible for my actions. Not my television set and not the color of my skin…’ And if it makes you feel good to call me a racist, fine. But if you’re really looking for who’s responsible for racism these days…  Take a good look in the mirror.

Eventually, the trial ends with a hung jury. Wanting to end the racial tension, Schiff refuses to retry – resulting in this exchange:

Stone
What do you want? Peace without justice?

Schiff
I’m willing to straddle the fence so the city can heal. Can you understand that?

Stone
Yeah, I understand that. And that cure is worse than the disease. And it’s a solution that I just can’t be part of.

The beautiful thing about Ben Stone is that if this debate had been over a wealthy, politically connected white man he would have reacted in the exact same way. In a swirl of leftist madness, he’s the only one who’s colorblind – the only one who’s not a racist.

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Three episodes later, after twenty years in the District Attorney’s office, Stone resigns in this touching and beautifully acted scene:

– 

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Sam Waterston is a damn good actor and at the time I thought a fine replacement for Moriarty, but there’s no getting around the fact that the transition from Ben Stone to Jack McCoy is a jarring one. McCoy isn’t so much a character as he is a collection of stuff he does: he drinks too much, sleeps with his assistants, rides a motorcycle and likes to win in court. He’s all swagger and no depth, and it would take only five episodes to understand just how much was lost with Moriarty’s departure.

“White Rabbit,” is about the prosecution of a fugitive Vietnam War protester who’s been in hiding for twenty-plus years after being involved in a 1971 robbery that resulted in the shooting death of a police officer. Foreshadowing the crazy left turn the show would take under producer Rene Balcer and never recover from, McCoy wants to give this woman a break, “because it was the sixties.” Even after the policeman’s widow pleads to McCoy for justice, in the next scene his sympathy remains: “The whole country was at war. The President and Attorney General were breaking the law. Young people thought they were a force in history.”

I remember that moment when the episode first aired. It was like getting the news that an old friend had died. That things would never be the same was obvious. And with that, a classic television show turned into just another one-hour network drama.

“White Rabbit” aired on 10/19/94.  

Moriarty’s tenure on “Law & Order” represents, in my opinion, four of the finest seasons of television ever produced, ranking right alongside “The Sopranos.” Other than some references to the Clinton administration, the show hasn’t aged a day…

Magnificent acting and principled themes are timeless.

***

For those of you who don’t know, Michael Moriarty’s politics are very close to his “Law & Order” character. He’s a strong opponent of abortion and in 2008 endorsed fellow “Law & Order” actor Fred Thompson for President.

While doing some research for this piece, I came across an op-ed he wrote just a few months ago.

Enjoy:

If we pull back the veil from the Progressive Movement, we are obliged to see its totalitarian aims.

The Progressives and their hidden, long-term eugenics strategies, begun by the Supreme Court’s revolting opinions in the Buck v Bell and Roe v Wade decisions, are the ultimate products of a turn of the century Liberalism that became infected with the Victorian Francis Galton’s dream of a Super Human Race. Fin-de-siècle Vienna and that city’s broiling intellectual and artistic explosions captured much of this growing nightmare.

Vienna’s cross-breeding of Liberalism with racial supremacy theories, matched by Wall Street’s clandestine admiration for Marx’s totalitarian grip upon the “intelligentsia” … out of this a wealthy and American Radical Chic created the euphemism of “Progressive”.

Hitler’s horrific inhumanity in 1940’s Europe forced the intellectual supremacists, or “enlightened despots” as Voltaire would have labeled them had he been alive at the time, to go underground. To call themselves Liberal was safe … but it was only half the story.

America’s elbow-rubbing with supremacists of any kind created its own secret elite … and that “Radical Chic” is now “Progressive”.

You can read the full article here.

How can you tell when they’re lying?    Their lips are moving.

They think you’re stupid.   It’s understandable that they should think that, because though they may on occasion listen to you, they never really hear you.  Hence, the only frame of reference for feedback on their incredibly absurd redistributive ideas, tax-and-spend proposals and unprecedented treasury-busting health care take-over bills…comes from their own constituents, the Democrats.  Whoops and hollers, cheers and laughter, nods, smiles, enthusiastic ‘yes-we-cans!’… as they serve up yet another heaping portion of socialist slop you’ll be expected to grab your ankles and pay for.  They think you’re stupid.

As the entire Democratic Party has now been fully commandeered by the hard Left, I wrestle daily with the following quandary:  Are they evil?  Or merely dense? 

Anyone paying attention and not mired in self-deceit can easily see that everything the current administration and Democrat-controlled Congress is doing and attempting to do is based in Marxian principles of redistribution, government takeovers of private industry and control of the American citizenry.  And anyone with just a rudimentary knowledge of basic economic principles and merely a modicum of historical perspective can see that capitalism lifts up and advances any civilization it touches; whereas socialism degrades quality of life by enriching the government as it dis-empowers the individual.  Freedom-loving people worldwide have been battling these statist oppressors throughout the millennia.  The failure of a modern American voting populace to intellectually link the smiling promises of today’s ‘free’ lunch with the blood, death and horror of tyrants of the past is to shame us all with a new definition of national  myopia.

They’re lying to us.  A bill crafted behind closed doors, excluding participation by the opposition party, the Republicans, and rejecting all alternative ideas about health care reform like freedom to shop insurance plans interstate?   Or TORT reform,  so that doctors don’t have to practice defensive medicine?   Or how about cutting down government red tape so hospital administrators don’t have to add the cost of voluminous paperwork to medical bills, and pairing back excessive government regulations so that hospitals and doctors can drive down costs through healthy competition?   But Steny Hoyer called it an open and transparent process.   Right.

Timothy Geithner is asking the government for more control over the Fed.  That’s certainly comforting.  His answer to current economic woes is to borrow more hundreds of billions from China…and print more money.  But – if they’re printing billions and billions of more dollars, doesn’t it make the dollars already in my hand…worth… less?  Uh…yeah.   And just wait until next year when the banks start to put these newly printed dollars into circulation.  And gold shoots sky high and the dollar plummets.  Then the fun begins…

They’re stealing from you.

Not only are they working around the clock to shore up their losses and lunatic-lefty programs, but they are preparing to raise your taxes through the roof.  Some of them will be hidden ‘fees.’ (Watch for them to pop up like measles spots when the virus begins.)  Some of them will be overt, you’ll be able to see them, at least for the ‘wealthy’ – you know, anyone earning over 100K.  But once inflation kicks in, pretty soon that will be the greater majority of us.  And they’ll expect us to be happy we’re earning so much.  And never mind the fact that those dollars we’re earning are becoming ever-increasingly worthless, and our standard of living is starting to tank.  Shortages, rationing, loss of services…   Anyone remember the long lines at the gas stations in the Carter years?  Odd-and-Even days to fill up?  Fist fights at the pumps…station owners wearing side-arms?

But our leader smiles endearingly and promises us that it will all work out.  After all, there is a beautiful rainbow in the sky and if we just follow his dream for America we will find at the end of it (after eight short years)…a pot of gold.  We merely have to Believe.  Just close our eyes, stare at his picture, click our heels three times and the Leprechaun in Chief will deliver us a pot of gold.

As the media and the Marxists march us to the edge of the bottomless pit of total government control of our wealth, our businesses, our property…our very lives…(some call this tyranny)…we are left with this question about our current leaders:   Are they evil…or merely stupid?   Or both?

And more importantly…what are you going to do about it?

That being said, this season has been refreshingly solid.  Aside from the atrocious “Let’s prosecute Cheney!” season premiere, each successive episode has been vintage “Law & Order.”  The most recent episode (”Dignity,” October 23) bordered on spectacular.  *Spoiler alert*

It did not begin auspiciously.  The opening sequence set the stage for yet another warmed-over episode wherein an abortionist is murdered, and the rest of the program consists of detectives trying to determine which anti-abortion nutter did the deed.  The show’s writers usually permit one character to utter a single token pro-life line (”Just because you might disagree with abortion doesn’t justify this violence!”), while the oh-so-reasonable pro-choice characters get the last word.  Having seen this template before, I almost flipped channels.  It seems as though at least one of the L&O spinoff series airs a “new” abortion-doctor-murder episode every year.  One wonders if more abortionists have been slain on this fictional television franchise over the past 20 years than in real life.

But last week’s episode marked a dramatic departure from the familiar, biased trope.  After detective Bernard makes a few forceful pro-life points in an impromptu squad car debate with his partner, ADA Cutter jumps into the fray. He professes his pro-life views and refutes a condescending response from his pro-choice colleague (Rubirosa) by citing the “turning tide” of public opinion and mentioning that most Americans now consider themselves pro-life.  Apparently Mr. Cutter’s been checking the latest Gallup stats. Rubirosa replies by pointedly referring to those who share Cutter’s views as “anti-choice,” at which point the reliably liberal District Attorney, Jack McCoy, mentions his own daughter’s change of heart on the issue.  She was staunchly pro-choice, he explains, prior to seeing the image of her unborn child in an ultrasound.   End of scene.

Jaw-dropping stuff.

Later in the episode, it’s revealed that the victim was performing illegal, post-birth abortions–more commonly known as murder–at his clinic.  A whistle-blower nurse informs the DA office that she left the deceased doctor’s practice after witnessing a failed abortion result in a live birth, and then a callous killing.  (For those who follow the abortion issue closely, this story may sound familiar.  It also raises an issue that was used to highlight the radical pro-abortion record of a certain post-partisan Messiah during the 2008 campaign). On the stand, the nurse testifies about the repugnant practice, explaining that the baby’s corpse was discarded as “medical waste.” This revelation horrifies both Rubirosa and the jury.

Later in the trial, another witness describes her decision not to abort her severely disabled child.  Her story moves the jury to tears.

The prosecution then calls an expert witness–a doctor–who testifies that his murdered colleague was doing good, medically necessary work.  Upon cross-examination, he’s exposed as a pro-abortion zealot; willing to perform third trimester abortions for any reason, no matter what the law says.  His contempt for Christians and pro-lifers is palpable, and turns off the jury.  The prosecutors are left wringing their hands about how poorly he performed on the stand.

Again, stunning.  I kept checking the channel guide–this really was “Law & Order.”

As the episode drew to a close, ADA Rubirosa offers the following admission:

“I grew up thinking Roe v. Wade was gospel.  That a woman’s privacy was inviolate.  But after hearing that woman on the stand talk about her baby dying in her arms, I don’t know.   I don’t know where my privacy ends and another being’s dignity begins.”

Cutter (the pro-life one, remember) tells her that in the current case, the distinctions are pretty black and white, and that it’s their job to put away the bad guys.  To which Rubirosa replies,

“I’m glad it’s so clear-cut for you, Mike.  Unfortunately, I can’t leave my soul in the umbrella stand when I come into work in the morning.”

You can watch the scene described above here.  In case you were curious, the trial ends with the abortionist’s killer being convicted.  (A verdict that all true pro-lifers would applaud).  ”Dignity” provided viewers with a nuanced, layered depiction of a hot-button social issue that did justice–and then some–to the conservative position.

To the writers and producers of “Law & Order,” Bravo.

The President has just announced that he will try a more formal sell to Congress on September 9th.  Will this work more than the last press conference in which he appeared to have no idea what he was trying to sell?  Will it be more successful than his appeal to religious leaders last week?  Or, will this be the final death knell in the partisan attempt at Health Care Reform?  Only time will tell. 

However, the tide has definitely turned against the Democrats.  More than 50% of the country on the whole and in some parts of the electorate, way more than 50% are against the current bill and its companion bills both in the House and Senate.  Why?  Because Republicans and even moderate Democrats cannot stomach what is contained in them. 

My last article was about the need for bipartisanship and debate in Congress.  I still feel that way but I do not see it happening.  In fact, both sides are digging their heels in and getting ready for the tug of war.  At this point, it is not about whose solution is better, it seems to be about which side will win. 

HR 3200 and its progeny are disasters.  It seems that everyone except the far left agrees on this.  In this article, I will analyze issues that I feel are wrong with those bills and why almost the entire populace is rallying against them. 

To begin with, the public option has to go.  All moderates and conservatives agree.  It is bad public policy and it is bad for America.  The minute you put the public option into play, all private insurance companies will be driven out of business and we will have socialized health care which is the goal of the far left anyway.  Once we have socialized health care, the parade of horribles begins.  This includes rationing of health care, lack of choice and skyrocketing taxes. 

However, if you regulate the current insurance industry, you will promote competition in the private sector and drive down prices.  This is the whole theory behind the anti-trust laws in the United States.  (By the way, regulation, however bad it is for the free market is better than the alternative).  The more competitive the private sector becomes, the lower the cost of health insurance will be.  Further, if you compel the entire population to become insured either through better tax credits for individuals and/or employers, regular market forces will naturally drive down the cost of insurance. 

Secondly, abortion must be specifically excluded from any proposed legislation.  The general public must not be forced to fund an elective procedure.  Say what you will about your stance on abortion, but it is an elective procedure unless the health of the mother is in jeopardy.  Then, it is a medical necessity and it is a whole different ball game. 

President Obama, during his appeal to the religious community last week, contacted Catholic Bishops and Leaders.  He impressed upon them the need for health care reform.  They unilaterally rejected his pleas.  Why?  Because, of the abortion issue.  The entire Catholic community believes that health care for everyone is a basic human right.  However, until the abortion issue is addressed, neither the Catholic Church, nor any other conservative religious organization is going to lobby their followers for ObamaCare. 

Just as an aside, Obama is beginning to show how much of an old fashioned politician he really is.  He ran on the basis of change.  During the campaign, he argued that America is no longer a Christian nation and that people cling to their religion when they are unhappy about their lives.  Now, that he needs religion to help his cause, he goes running to religion.  This is not change.  He is a hypocrite! 

The next issue is very controversial and, unfortunately, it is also a monetary one.  Public money in any way, shape or form, must not be used to fund medical care for illegal immigrants.  I know people from the far left are going to call me a racist and a heartless bastard.  Believe me, I am not.   But, if we are going to bankrupt this country with this level of major health care reform, it should only be for legal, taxpaying citizens and those holding valid visas. 

I am not saying that someone lying on the street bleeding to death should not receive emergency treatment because they are illegally here.  The law already states that everyone with a true emergency must be treated.  All I am saying is that basic health care that is not a true emergency should not be afforded to illegal aliens.  They are many people in this country that have come here properly.  They should be entitled to the benefits of citizens.  The rest should not. 

Fourth, a plan must be developed that is revenue neutral.  We cannot mortgage our children’s future any longer.  If no one can come up with a way to pay for this plan without destroying the economy in the process, then there should be no plan at all.  Some of the top minds in this country are in Washington right now trying to put a plan together.  Let them find a way to fund it without it increasing the debt by over one trillion dollars in the next ten years. 

Lastly, there should be no tax penalty for employers who do not want to provide health insurance and individuals who do not want to be insured.  If a company provides health insurance, there should be tax benefits for providing it.  There should be no penalty for not doing so. If an individual does not want insurance, that is a personal choice.  There are many people under 30 who simply do not want to be covered.  Likewise, there are many rich people that would rather be self insured and pay the medical bills themselves. 

I keep hearing from many sources that the Republicans have no solutions and are just trying to kill health reform to put Obama to shame.  That is not true.  There are many Republican points on health care that are frankly, just being ignored by the Democrats.  Among them are Tort Reform to lower medical malpractice premiums and bring medical costs down; and better tax benefits for health insurance at both the employer and individual level. 

Let the Democrat Congress deal with the issues set forth herein and a bipartisan bill will be enacted.  If they do not and decide to continue going it alone, the effects of that will be felt by them in 2010.  Of course, that might not be all that bad.  The Republicans will get control of the House and Senate again!

Catholic Digest has a fascinating interview with Jim Caviezel, star of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Here’s an excerpt:

This guy I know said, ‘You’re pro-life. Tell you what, if you really believe in what you speak, adopt a child — not any child, he’s got to have a serious deficiency,’ (and I will become pro-life). He never changed his (position), but it convicted me. I don’t think he thought I would step up to the plate.

I was listening to Johnny Mathis the other day and I said, “What an amazing voice.” I have yet to hear another person sound like Johnny Mathis. How are we so arrogant to think the 51.5 million babies who have died in this country… Look, I am for helping women. I just don’t see abortion as helping women. And I don’t love my career that much to say, “I’m going to remain silent on this.” I’m defending every single baby who has never been born. And every voice that would have been unique like Johnny Mathis’. How do we know that we didn’t kill the very child who could have created a particular type of medicine that saves other lives?

There’s much more about both “Soraya M.” and “The Passion of the Christ.”

“I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not, and I wasn’t thinking about adoption,” … “I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don’t think it’s talked through enough. I can’t even tell you how many people just say, ‘Oh, get an abortion.’ Like it’s not a big deal.” …

I looked online, and I was sitting on bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion,” she recalls. “I was reading these things of how many people are traumatized by it afterwards.”

After scouring the Internet, Kardashian says she started to realize that an abortion wasn’t an option for her. “I was just sitting there crying, thinking, ‘I can’t do that,’” she says. “And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life.”

Kardashian says she did some intense soul-searching. “For me, all the reasons why I wouldn’t keep the baby were so selfish: It wasn’t like I was raped, it’s not like I’m 16. I’m 30 years old, I make my own money, I support myself, I can afford to have a baby. And I am with someone who I love, and have been with for a long time.”

Not saying I’m right or even that someone hasn’t already done so, but the obvious effect on Kardashian after she learned about women ”traumatized afterwards” only reinforces a long held belief that the most effective anti-abortion documentary would be one involving women living with what must be a terrible burden of regret and guilt — who after some years pass and a little maturity settles in are now faced with the true enormity of a monstrous act that can no longer be rationalized away.

It only makes sense that there are plenty of good and decent women out there who were once young, fell for the feminist line and now live with the horrific realization that for the sake of convenience they killed their own child. In the hands of a compassionate and intelligent documentary filmmaker, the gathering and recording of those testimonials would be a persuasive way to give others a glimpse into their own future and convince them to consider adoption.

Those who believe in legalized abortion but claim to want fewer abortions should find this kind of approach perfectly acceptable, right? Right…?

Most of what springs from our toxic celebrity culture affirms only that the apocalypse is near, so hopefully Ms. Kardashian’s affirmation of life will get the attention it deserves.

I wrote this piece for some friends a week after John McCain named a relatively unknown woman from Alaska as his running mate.  Since only ten people ever read it, I thought I would re-post it here, perhaps the most revealing day in the storied history of Modern Feminism.  Yesterday, over one-hundred and sixty years after Susan B. Anthony joined the movement for women’s suffrage, just five American women actively held the title of Governor of their state.  Today, there are only four, and rather than be enraged by the sudden decline to less than ten-percent of all state-executive offices, the entrenched modern feminist powers are rejoicing, because it is they who brought down the governorship of Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin and the Lie of Women’s Rights
September 6, 2008

As anyone who has been to Huffington Post in the last seven days knows, the entire world has changed. In January, the big story in the media was that some woman was running against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. In June, the story was that some old war-lover was running against Barack Obama in the general election. Seven days ago, Barack Obama, only hours off of the biggest moment of his campaign, disappeared from the news cycle entirely. The only name in the media today, for better or for worse, is Sarah Palin. For better because she has single-handedly solved John McCain’s two biggest problems, his base, and his base.

Conservatives love her for her deadly pen, which has been known to slash government spending and taxes with masterful strokes. Social-Conservatives (read: Evangelicals) love her because she walks the walk on their biggest single issue: The Right to Life. For worse, because the lion’s share of the press that swirls around her has been decidedly, sexistly, disproportionately negative. In seven days, the media has managed to bring to light more dirt on this previously (nationally) unknown woman than they have apparently discovered in eighteen months of covering Barack what’s-his-name. You remember, last-year’s political celebrity… It has been a no-holds-barred, full-frontal assault on everything from her mothering skills, to her record (suddenly the press is interested in EXPERIENCE as a prerequisite for the presidency), to what kind of clothes she wore as a teenager (experimenting with cocaine and Marxism don’t get the media’s attention, but flirty t-shirts are big news these days). Even her hair-do seems worthy of criticism.

So, the obvious question is: Why? Why has a bona-fide American hero with a record of reform, running as his party’s nominee for the presidency, barely earned a passing glance from the main-stream media, but this hockey-mom-turned-governor seeking the least important job in the country has turned the world upside down? And why all the hate from the transcendent left? What about this woman so incenses the extreme, vocal left-wing of the Democratic Party that they can’t even stop slinging filth at her long enough to remind us that their messiah is still running for the big job? The answer isn’t hard to discern. Feminism is to the Left what the Evangelicals are to the Right, they are the conscience of the Democratic Party, and Sarah Palin is proof positive that modern feminism’s stated objective is a lie.

Organized Feminism started over one-hundred and sixty years ago as an answer to the gross injustice of the subjugation of women in our country. Even as the country was moving on a collision course with it’s own moral failings regarding slavery, heroes like Susan B. Anthony were making even bigger claims. It was not enough that all men be granted equal protection under the law, although they certainly should be. No, for our country to be truly free, this right had to extend to all women as well. The struggle was long and costly. Even as a war was fought to liberate people of color, women were still denied the basic rights they sought: The right to vote. The right to equal protection under the law. The right to work and receive equal pay. The right to look out at the sea of opportunity that life has to offer, and to pursue their happiness with the same options and empowerment as any of the rest of God’s children. Women’s Rights, most of us would call them, and certainly Susan B. Anthony did as well, but if that is how we define Women’s Rights, we are living in the past, for the modern feminist is not concerned with these issues at all. No, for the modern feminist, the term Women’s Rights is a simple, shameful code. One that means, and means exclusively, the right to have abortions at will, regardless of the age or health of the mother or child, with absolutely no restriction or remorse.

If this is not the case, then what answer do we give to people like Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), one of the leading feminist voices in the nation, when she has the following to say about Gov. Palin: “Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women’s rights…”

Opposed to women’s rights? How could this possibly be true? Ms. Gandy continues: “In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would “choose life” — meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion… like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women’s rights.”

And there it is, my friends, Women’s Rights being redefined right before your eyes. Sarah Palin, a woman poised to be this country’s first female Vice-President, is opposed to the rights of women. Sarah Palin who hunts (dare I say: Like a Man?), fishes, is a pilot, who started as a concerned parent and then became mayor of her community and then governor of her state (making equal pay with her male predecessor…), and who could now become the first woman ever to occupy the office of the Vice President is AGAINST women’s rights, because women’s rights have nothing to do with any of that freedom or equality stuff. Not to modern feminism. Susan B. Anthony must be rolling over in her grave. But of course, it was Susan B. Anthony who said that, “When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged.” Did you catch that, Kim Gandy? Susan B. Anthony was opposed to women’s rights too. So what was it exactly that she fought so hard for?

For the last forty years, the women’s movement in this country has maintained that in order for women to be truly free, they must not be required to be women at all. They must be hardened creatures, angry at and emasculating of men. They must be opportunistic and career minded, never letting pregnancy or child-rearing slow them down in their single-minded pursuits. They must dress in pant-suits, crop their hair, despise femininity, and THEY MUST HAVE ABORTIONS. Only then can they attain the promise long denied them – the chance to have the same jobs at the same pay as the man-devils they despise. By her simple existence, Sarah Palin proves all of these women wrong. A woman can, as it turns out, be a woman and still be as successful as any man. She can raise her kids and love them, even if they aren’t eugenic master-pieces; she can love her husband, a man so masculine he is called THE FIRST DUDE of Alaska, who runs a fishing boat in freezing waters and races snowmobiles on two-thousand miles treks; she can be feminine, have long-hair, wear dresses, blow kisses during her public speeches, smile and laugh with that perspective that women seem to have in spades, and that men often lack as part of the natural differences and unique gifts that distinguish the genders; and she can put career second to family, not being singularly driven, but responsive to the needs and opportunities that present themselves, hard working and optimistic, and in doing so, she can conquer the world.

Forty years of modern feminism were just revealed to be nothing but hatred and murder in disguise with no agenda what-so-ever other than the destruction of the traditional American family. No wonder they hate this woman. She is proof of what most women in this country have always known: It is okay to be a woman, and in fact, you can do just fine for yourself without having to change into what you are not: a mutated human who is neither feminine nor truly masculine, and never happy. Oh, and you don’t have to abort your children to get ahead. I don’t think the left can do anything to stop this woman, because they have no idea what she actually is. They haven’t seen a real American woman on the left since Roe V. Wade.

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Of course, today it may seem that my final thoughts on that bright fall day were wrong, that they actually did destroy Sarah Palin.  If so, I hope it soothes the remnant guilt I’m sure they still carry for turning their backs on the true champion of their beliefs, Hilary Clinton, when she was so close to the prize.  At least they didn’t let the anti-Hilary ascend, or even endure.  Well, I say, sleep well while you can, my friends.  In the end, I suspect that the Sarah they have most to fear is not Vice President Sarah or even Governor Sarah at all.  It is Citizen Sarah’s first day on the clock, and her star seems as bright to me as ever it did last September.