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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.

Poll after poll, the United States ranks as the most “God-fearing” nation on the planet. Good on us! Whether you believe in God or not, it’s tough to deny the reality of Christian principles being an intricate part of our country’s historical fabric.

One has to ask themselves however, as arguably the last “Christian nation” around, why were our Founders so adamant about keeping the Feds grimy paws out of our churches?

Most of Europe upheld state religions, yet only 52 percent of its citizens maintain a belief in God.

My home province of Quebec force-fed its people their state-enforced brand of Catholicism for years, yet it now enjoys the title of being the single most un-churched population of the industrialized world. Compare these statistics to the well-over 80% of Americans who believe in God and one can’t help but notice a pattern there.

There’s no doubt that the Founding Fathers were deeply spiritual men (and when I say spiritual, I mean in the Judeo-Christian sense, not in the Disney/Pray-to-colors-of-the-wind type silliness). With that being said, could it be that they wanted to separate church and state, in order to PRESERVE the Christian principles that built this country?

Think about it. When has government successfully forced people to do ANYTHING that they didn’t already want to do? From forced “integration” in Detroit, to putting a tax on a morning breakfast beverage, the results have always been disastrous.

A freedom-saturated environment is conducive to the growth of faith in God. I’m guessing that might be why our Founding Fathers were much more “spirit” rather than “letter of the law” Christians like their English counterparts.

You know who else felt the same way… Jesus.

No, really. Jesus was forthright with his whole “I am the way, the truth and the light” deal (heck he was even crucified for it), but ultimately, the man left the decision up to us.

I guess what I’m wondering now is, if the Son of Man never felt the need to force anything down our throat… Where does our government get off thinking that they can?

Americans don’t want universal health care, we’re getting it. We don’t want Cap and Tax, we’re getting it. If freedom has generally bred positive choices, one would have to wonder what comes of statism. Historically, all signs point towards revolution. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, even though the muskets would be fun to have.

As an even bigger point, I think that the systematic removal of our individual liberties is not only anti-American … it’s Anti-Christian. Ask yourself not only how the Founding Fathers would feel about the current administrations diametric opposition to their original intentions for our country, but what would Jesus think? It sounds gimmicky I’m sure, but when you get to pondering, it can be a real trip.

Of course, whenever I find myself still in doubt I ask: What would Sean Penn do?

My whole childhood was like that. A lot of crazy stuff, a lot of running from police. Was a local sport, like train-hopping. But that’s all just the gritty side of Cambridge. And even though I’m a rank Righty today, I still love Harvard University all the way, the Square especially. It’s the Crossroads of the World. I was a total Harvard Square rat growing up. Harvard is the Bright Light of Olde Cantabrigia. Harvard was also very active in the community back then, and most likely still is today. Harvard hosted field trips to the campus from schools all over Cambridge. The Agassiz Museum was my favorite. Lots of dead bugs and dinosaur bones. That was Heaven to me. Still is.

So there it is. Cambridge Dark and Light. Of course, as a Harvard Square rat I ran into my fair share of elitist Harvard eggheads, both students and faculty, whose utter contempt for a lowlife Cambridge projects kid like myself could be felt with Hiroshima-like intensity. But given my many experiences on campus, and as a waif wayfarer on Harvard’s Challenge program, I believe most people at Harvard, both faculty and students, could not be more honorable or pure of heart and intent. I’m not going to smash that whole crate because of a few bad eggheads. Harvard has its troublemakers, too. Lots! Just ask former Harvard president Larry Summers. He was run out on a rail by militant feminists.

Fact is, I love Cambridge. Warts and all. Part of my heart and soul, and one of the most egalitarian cities on earth. So when news broke about Dr. Gates’ outrageous charges of racism, I immediately and most publicly called him a bold-faced liar. But not just in defense of my hometown or CPD. I called it based on personal experience. And I called it right on the money, did I not? See, some years back my brother and I, both drunk, were in a confrontation of my idiot drunken brother’s making with five Cambridge cops when I yelled “Your Mama!” at a black cop. We were arrested for disorderly conduct, cuffed, thrown into the paddy wagon and hauled off to the same jail as Dr. Skippy.

That incident took place not five blocks from Dr. Gates’ house. In short, I had experienced the exact same arrest for the exact same charge in the exact same neighborhood by the exact same PD. Who not actually there could have seen how the whole thing went down better? From yelling “Your Mama!” to cuffing to paddy wagon ride to booking in the same jail? Yet Dr. Gates’ hoax cry of racism at whom we now know is one of the state’s top racial profiling experts, President Obama’s Man Show suds-rinsing of Dr. Gates’ crime by sitting down white victim and black victimizer on an equal moral plane in sickening equivocating fashion, is not even the real monster here.

The real monster would have been if Al Sharpton brought his Traveling Racial Arsonist Show to town, which he was ready to do. Big Al lives for incidents like this to spark or fuel smoldering racially-tinged incidents into Towering Inferno proportions. Think about this. Had Officer Crowley been just some regular Officer Joe on the Beat, and not been able to provide the damning refutations of Dr. Gates’ hoax cry of racism, Cambridge, the city of my birth that I love warts and all, might at this very moment be going up in flames, both racial and literal, for Big Al’s race-mongering fun and profit. Just like Crown Heights and Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Nine dead in those two alone. And it would have all gone down over yet another foul race-baiting hoax, just like Tawana Brawley and Duke.

In my city? In my birthplace? He’ll have to kill me first! Over my dead body! Not a rare outcome when Big Al brings his racial gas cans and lighters to town. How Big Al a bullet did Cambridge just dodge? I’ll bet Big Al is breathing a sigh of relief as he watches Dr. Skippy burn in a fire of his own making, yet is even now scouring the American landscape for the Next Big Whitey Thing to torch to the skies. That’s who he is. A black David Duke, as Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe so aptly put it. What happens to the next racially-targeted innocent white police officer, his city and his peaceful neighborhoods, when said officer is NOT a racial profiling expert who teaches the subject?

Got an idea. And THAT is the monstrous 800-pound gorilla that is occupying and trashing the Obama Racial Harmony Room, to wit the all-too-profitable and most politically powerful black Lefty racial grievance-mongering Hate Whitey cottage industry in America. It’s got to go. The law, and the law alone, from the cop on the beat to the US Supreme Court, should deal with all crimes and legal matters of race, not the racists themselves. Kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it? They’re like the black radical version of the Klan, showing up with ropes and torches at even a whiff of white-on-black injustice, real or imagined, wherever it happens in America. Duke Lacrosse ring any bells?

In fact, black Lefty racial grievance-mongering is a HUGE business in America today. With a black President in a 72% white-majority nation, how sad is that? In this Obama Age of Racial Harmony, in particular? Tell me truly. What legal resources and avenues of redress do any and all minority Americans NOT have? The federal and state EEOCs, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a million other NGOs and government agencies exist, and even live, to redress real racial grievances to the fullest measure and extent of the law. As they should. For ALL races of Americans!

Since news on Dr. Gates first broke, I have been neck-deep in it. It has been my mission in life since to bring him down, and as many of his fellow career race-baiters and grievance-mongers who jumped all over this race-hoax abomination from the word go. Anderson Cooper’s AC360 show called me about my first damning oped on Dr. Gates. The Cambridge Chronicle is reprinting it Thursday. My reports are all on file at my article folder at Digital Journal, including one manic thirty-hour stretch when news was breaking insanely fast and furious.

Lots more deep background on Cambridge, and some very unsavory stuff on Dr. Gates et al. But this has all been a very unsavory episode, hasn’t it?

That monster is growing, people. Worst of all, with President Obama’s direct aiding an abetting by giving Get-Out-Of-Terrorizing-White-Voters-Free cards to the three Black Panther thugs whom career DOJ lawyers wanted to skin alive, and had default convictions in hand to do just that. Why did Obama do it? Aren’t white voters just as protected by the law as blacks in the Jim Crow South? Or are we witnessing a regression of the law in favor of black radicals? When you throw in Obama’s equivocation of Dr. Gates’ crime of yelling racial “Fire!” in a crowded country, it doesn’t look good.

A lot more background in my DJ reports, but here’s two related news items you may find interesting.

AL SHARPTON’S NIECE WANTS REPERCUSSIONS FOR SNITCH WHO CALLED 911

That would be Ms. Lucia Whalen, the woman who placed the 911 call, whom Brittany Sharpton wants revenge served cold on. Ms. Whalen has been insanely persecuted ever since that call, even though she never mentioned race until asked by CPD. Great. Rile up some whack job black racists to terrorize an elderly woman for doing a public service, even for Dr. Gates has it been a real break-in like the one he recently suffered. Like Uncle, Like Niece.

Here are some delightful insights from Facebook on NBBP poll watcher thug-in-chief Jerry Jackson, who will be right back terrorizing, er, I mean watching the polls in Philly:

DISTURBING CONTENT ON NBBP JERRY JACKSON’S FACE BOOK PAGE

‘Killin’ Crakkkas’ is very high on Mr. Jackson’s To-Do List. He also has a very welcoming sign at his home in Philadelphia: “COLORED ONLY: NO WHITES ALLOWED”

I have to tell you, people. I may not be black. But with all that’s going on lately, I’m starting to get an idea of how it felt to be a black man in the Jim Crow South. Tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way. Racial injustice knows no color, people. And Hate is as Equal Opportunity as it gets. Stop The H8!

Nope.  Not saying I’ve consulted the Creator, but…I have it on good authority that that virgin-in-paradise thingie is just a cheap, bucket-o-baloney BS recruiting tool. 

Psych!

So all you would-be jihadist bombers with a hard-on to plant the IED’s that are designed to kill our brave servicemen… hey, find something else to do with your hard-on, Sparky, instead of waiting to use it on those 72 clueless virtual babettes.  If you’re that lonely and pathetic and worthless, hop on the ubiquitous 25-hour Internet porn sites, take tool in hand, and work out three minutes of your destiny right there in the privacy of your mud hovel.  Keep the explosives at home!  Your imagined glory doesn’t give a sh*t about you and you blowing up an American G.I. won’t keep you from an eternity of teeth gnashing and anal herpes, so get your head out of your poo-hole, and go get a real job – like maybe something that helps people instead of kills them.  Just a thought.

But talk about irony — how’s that for a sad, sick joke?  These devoted extremists, buying the whole jihad warrior myth hook, line and stinker; keeping themselves religiously devout and chaste…waiting for the ultimate reward for their heroic, murderous acts of carnage…and they don’t go to heaven at all.

They go straight to hell!

It’s almost funny.  Or at least it would be, if it weren’t so terribly sad.  A small, extremist segment of one of the world’s largest religion locked into a horribly illogical, obstinate and cruel horror of futility.  All based upon a lie.  That their ‘god’ compels them to either convert the world to Islam…or if that doesn’t work, blow everything up.  That they are committed to an eternal jihad to kill any who won’t accept and adopt their strict religious doctrine — man, woman or child.  That they are in fact rewarded by murdering those innocents with an eternal bliss of paradise and fornicating with virgins.

And they call us the Great Satan.

Okay…let me back up.  With all due (and undue) respect…and I know that is a broad disclaimer, but I don’t know how else to couch it.  I’m speaking now to only violence-prone, extremist Islamofascist Muslims.  I can understand that your feelings were hurt five thousand years ago when the Jews started jumping around declaring that God said that they were the ‘chosen people’.  I understand you may have felt a bit…what, slighted?  I know I would have.  “What do you mean you guys are the ‘chosen ones’?   Chosen by whom?  God!?  You kiddin’ me?  Oh, yeah, and what – we’re chopped liver??  What kind of sh*t is that??”

But have you considered…”chosen…for what, exactly?”   If you look at their history, it becomes clear that they haven’t always been chosen for good things.  There was that slavery thing in Egypt.  That worked out all right, eventually.  Moses rocked.  And the Promised Land was cool.  But what about that exile into Babylon?  That could not have been pleasant.   Then the struggle with the Romans?   There was no United Nations to complain to.  And the ACLU could get no traction, though I’m sure they tried.  And then, bummer of bummers, Jesus comes into popularity…gives the Jewish leaders a bunch of lip…rampages through the temple like Axel Rose trashing the penthouse suite at the Hollywood Hyatt…and the Jews get the rap for the death of Christ!   And everybody who was there said it was the Romans who killed him!    (If only we had a Zapruder film back then, we could put that controversy to rest, huh?)  Then…the prosecution in Russia…the pogroms…and finally…Europe under Nazi rule.  The Final Solution.  

So…you have to ask yourself…  They’re the Chosen People…but chosen for what?

Still…to be ‘chosen’ is to be special.  So, by extrapolation, to not be chosen…is to not be special.  That’s gotta sting.

Well… I feel your pain.  It’s got to be a wee bit aggravating to develop your culture side by side with a whole race that touts at every turn its own unique favor with the deity.  An exclusive club, a gold-key membership and back stage pass to the All-Mighty.  The Jews as Rock Stars.  And that other offshoot from Abraham…the Muslim root?  “Uh…sorry, guys, you can be the roadies.  Grab those Marshall cabinets, will ya, pal?   We gotta get going with the sound check.”

I don’t know.  Maybe if that Cain dude hadn’t killed his brother Abel, things might have turned out differently?  

I’m a Christian, I’m not one of the ‘chosen people’ either.  You don’t see me tearing my clothes, ripping out my hair or swinging my scimitar at the closest synagogue.  I’m easy, I say, “Hey, they’re the Chosen People?  Good on them, I hope it works out.”   But listen, Ahmed – and I say this with patience, tolerance, and respect.  It’s been five thousand years…so I suggest that each of you who are still smoldering with this multi-generational hatred for all things Jewish…sit down now and pour yourself a nice hot cup of Lighten-the-F*#k-Up.

Time to let it go.

I’m reminded of that TV show a few years back, “Ally McBeal”.  Gregg Grumann played a lawyer they called, ‘Fish’.   Fish had the amazing proclivity for screwing over everyone he came in contact with; effortlessly, sometimes unwittingly, but screwing them over nonetheless, just as a matter of course.   Upon discovering any of his innumerable offenses, he would instantly relieve himself of blame, responsibility and penalty with a simple, tossed-away word:  “Bygones!“   (As in, ‘Let bygones be bygones’.)  (As in Yo!  Fahgettaboudit!)

Abdul… Ahmed… Sal-hakim Ib bin Sal-har Alimi-Omar… all together now:   “Bygones!”

Yes, there have been thousands of years of war.  Yes, there were plenty of atrocities perpetrated in the name of “God-wills-it” over the millennia.  And as a Christian infidel, I’ll cop to some various offenses those Crusade fellows may have been involved in as they were busy ‘evangelizing’ the Muslim world, Bible in one hand, sword in the other.  (That Richard the Lionheart was reportedly a real irascible sort, and not much prone to mediated negotiation.)

But you tyrants and extremists under the star and crescent (peace-loving Muslims I have no quarrel with… although, in light of your religion having been somewhat hijacked by a vocal and violent extremist minority, you do yourselves and the world a great disservice in not speaking up against Wahhabbi extremism – and your silence is deafening!”)... it’s you guys who have been doing the lion’s share of unprovoked bloodletting in recent memory.  If you guys were truly interested in peace you would acknowledge at least Israel’s right to exist.  You wouldn’t have turned down Ehud Barak’s numerous peace proposals and concessions to Arafat.  You wouldn’t have stoked the so-called Lebanese civil war (if unprovoked slaughter of untold Lebanese Christians can be called civil war).  And if you were truly a people of peace…you would devote yourselves and your culture to building up you society and your people.  You would engage in enterprises that develop technology and help to feed your people and provide a better, more peaceful existence.  You would work in harmony with your Jewish neighbors, exchanging products, services and ideas for furthering the happy, peaceful progress you espouse openly in English to the western press; and then just as quickly, deny and disparage in your own language to your own people.  Like…”Now that we’re alone, and have fooled those suckers, now I can tell you what we really are all about.”  (Little things like…driving Israel into the Mediterranean.)

When you tell us you’re all about peace….is it any wonder we don’t believe you?

As of this writing there is a great tremor shaking earth.  The winds of revolution are stirring in Tehran, following claims of a fraudulent election that would restore the crazed despot Ahmadinejad to another oppressive term.  The people of Iran are filling the streets, rising up for freedom.  They are out in force, risking their lives, opposing the tyrant.

We Americans, we who love liberty, are being stirred to our core in empathy and encouragement.  We cheer from the sideline, much as when we see film of a baby seal swimming desperately for its life, trying to escape the jaws of a killer whale.  We urge him on, and against overwhelming odds, the tiny seal somehow escapes to freedom…and life. 

We are stirred by the scenes in Iran because we remember our own impossible beginnings.  Going up against the power and might of the British Empire, the one lone superpower of its day.  With so much allied against us, the birth of our Republic should never have happened.  And yet it did.  The human will, that sacrosanct human drive, the will to be free…overcame all the threat, fear, danger… and sacrifice.

These are pivotal, indeed, critical times for our nation and for our world.  To what extent will we support that drive for freedom, in Iran, and in other sections of the world?

And, in light of recent movements by the Obama administration and Congress to the contrary…to what extent will we support the drive for liberty in our own nation? 

With the seemingly endless abundance of practiced and prodigious bullsh*t hurled about in the media, some from the commentators, some from our leaders — we often lose sight of certain self-evident truths, not the least of which is this:  there is right…and there is wrong. 

The line in the sand has been drawn. 

It was drawn while we were downloading from Itunes, it was drawn while bugs were eaten raw on SURVIROR, it was drawn while the Lakers were surmounting their drive for the championship.  And despite great pop-cultural obfuscation to the contrary, the line is quite clear. 

Right, wrong.  Good, evil. 

No one any longer has the luxury of sitting back and letting ‘those others’ make the decisions, call the shots, and determine what sort of world we are to live in.  To make no decision is to make a decision; to the detriment of society.  You are on one side…or you’re on the other.   And ignorance, in the day years ago of crude technology and limited information sources, may have been an excuse.  But no more.  The information age is upon us, and to abdicate to laziness or outright arrogant refusal to self-educate, is to join the legions who foment darkness and encourage intellectual and spiritual bondage. 

So which side are you on?

Are you on the side of the Oppressors?  On the side of those who would control you, regulate you, tax you, fine you, imprison you, or kill you if you don’t adhere to their philosophy of life or rules of religion?  Or are you on the side of the Freemen?   On the side of free individuals engaged in liberty and the free pursuit of happiness, unfettered by excessive government restriction, and guided by a code of honor and responsibility and devotion to goodness, strength, love and liberty?

The time for sitting on the sidelines has passed – for all of us.  That tapping you feel right now, deep inside…   It is the urgings of your soul.  That tapping shall soon be a great pounding drum beat.  It is the universal urging to be free, of which every human being is born.  To deny it is to submit to enslavement.  To answer it is to stand up and take your rightful place among a free people of destiny. 

Terrorists and tyrants can have hell – they earned it. 

Let those of us who cherish freedom and honor life stand now here, on this earth, and fight for freedom.  And let us fight as though our future, our families, our very lives depended on it.  Because, friend…it surely does.

Should the Motion Picture Association of America retroactively slap an “R” rating upon To Have and Have Not (1944)? After all, the classic film famously depicts silver-screen debutante Lauren Bacall and future husband Humphrey Bogart–gasp!–smoking. The American Medical Association Alliance demands that films featuring smoking characters be given an “R” rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA already takes into consideration the tobacco habits of celluloid characters in determining a film’s rating. The AMAA’s demand would take that consideration from the MPAA, automatically assigning an “R” to any film depicting an ordinary, everyday activity normally conducted in the open when the cameras aren’t rolling. The ACLU hasn’t voiced objection, but what about Margot Tenenbaum? The Smoking Man? The Man with No Name?

President Obama — David Axelrod

You know. Like Wanda Sykes, Sandra Bernhard and the Teabag-loving MSM.

As to Mr. Axelrod’s crude and lame attempt at insulting humor that should be beneath the dignity of any presidential advisor, I can only conclude that he made that derogatory comment about Carrie Prejean because Miss California shares his boss’s negative attitude  toward gay marriage.

During this live interview, in which Hot Seat host Peter Sagal referred to Mr. Axelrod as ‘the moustache behind the throne’ and the ‘Rasputin of the Magic Kingdom’ (my personal favorite, for reasons you shall soon know), Mr. Axelrod also slammed a comparison to his predecessor, former Bush advisor Karl Rove: “I always reject that. I’d like to think we’re better than that.”

Mr. Axelrod may like to think he’s better than Karl Rove, but he’s actually far worse than Karl Rove ever was in both class and principle.  Example. In the wake of the controversial DHS Right Wing Extremism report, and as the Tea Parties were happening, Mr. Axelrod said the following in a Face The Nation interview: “Any time that you have severe economic conditions, there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that’s unhealthy.” Hint hint.

Mr. Axelrod also also added this qualifying disqualifier: “We value our liberties and our values of liberty and to express ourselves, and so far, these are just expressions.” So far. Does anyone else notice how closely Mr. Axelrod adheres to the controversial blanket statements of the DHS RWE report? Show me one instance in which Karl Rove implied Leftie demonstrators were a potential threat to the Republic, even when joking of President Bush’s assassination had become chic.

Yet for Mr. Axelrod, throw one peaceful nationwide Tea Party and it’s a national security concern.

Like Rush Limbaugh, for example, whom Mr. Axelrod helped coordinate a political campaign against with the power, resources, authority and consent of the White House. Can you imagine the uproar if President Bush and Karl Rove orchestrated a political campaign against Al Franken or Michael Moore from directly within the Oval Office? The Left would have been foaming at the mouth about death camps and Nixon’s enemies’ lists.

Yet, like Rasputin and unlike Karl Rove, President Obama’s ‘Mad Monk’ is fast accumulating enemies across the political spectrum. Mr. Axelrod’s defense of the President’s blocking of the detainee photos, along with the Obama administration’s plan to restore military tribunals of Gitmo detainees, is riling everyone on the Left from the ACLU to Code Pink. One member of Code Pink now wonders when she should start calling President Obama a war criminal.

Also like Karl Rove, David Axelrod has accumulated no shortage of political enemies. But unlike Rove, the Mad Monk’s political adversaries now run the gamut from the ACLU’s Anthony Romero to Dick Cheney. That’s quite an achievement, to piss everybody off in a short three months!

Anyone who knows the story of Rasputin can see the rich similarities here. A wild-eyed True Believer and political loose cannon with extraordinary influence having a derogatory effect on Tsar Obama’s kingdom, making enemies everywhere. Though I doubt Obama’s Mad Monk will suffer the same poisoned wine and tea cakes and multiple gunshots before being bagged and tossed into a river as his freaky Russian progenitor, I expect Mr. Axelrod’s big mouth will sooner or later bear the treadmarks of Obama’s political bus tires.

Then again, the President has been loathe to toss those closest to him where they belong. Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers were major political albatrosses, and candidate Obama didn’t give them the heave-ho until it was nearly too late in the campaign. That being the case, and knowing the Mad Monk’s close association with President Obama, maybe he’ll be allowed to just keep on spouting insults, innuendo, vitriol and hypocritical excuses to extend Bush-era national security policies, and continue to offend even more millions of Americans of all political stripes.

He certainly hasn’t failed to disappoint to date. And I’m hoping he continues to do just that. I am a Republican, after all. By the way, Politico’s Alex Conant concurs with my assessment. Only he uses a different historical point of reference: Machiavelli.  His analysis is well worth the read, yet I disagree with Mr. Conant on one Point of Parliamentary Procedure. Machiavelli believed that you should “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Obama’s Mad Monk is making no friends, except for the intellectual retards in NPR’s Hot Seat audiences. And his enemies are closing in from all sides. NPR can’t save him there. And with President Obama’s flip-flopping on national security issues and other disastrous policies, the Mad Monk’s inevitable pretzel-twisting logic to justify measures candidate Obama ran against, and the political backlash sure to follow as it has to date, I can only imagine the poisoned wine and tea cakes will start looking real good to Rasputin II as his Magic Kingdom turns to shite.

For all of you atheist Libertarians who will undoubtedly be offended by this… Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to complain about it while you’re in hell.

I decided a long time ago that religion would play no part in my life, but I felt no compulsion to convert others.  Oddly enough, I never resented the folks who would ring my doorbell and try to proselytize me.  Although I don’t like dealing with uninvited guests, I always thought it was nice of them to be that concerned about the eternal soul of a perfect stranger. Having said all that, I wish to announce that I despise the ACLU for its relentless attacks on Christianity and Judaism.  It’s bad enough that they will wage battle on behalf of any busybody looking to banish Christmas and Hanukkah symbols from public places, including one’s own front yard.

However, these very same lawyers will eagerly go to the mat to safeguard a Muslim’s right to wear a disguise on her driver’s license, a Navajo’s right to ingest peyote, and a cultist’s right to ritualistically slaughter small animals. 

The ACLU proclaims that they’re merely abiding by the Constitution’s insistence on the separation of church and state.  The only problem with that position is that the Constitution says no such thing.  Although the secular Left has glommed on to that catch phrase like a pitbull gnawing on a shinbone, the First Amendment simply states: “Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 

That is a far cry from forcing apartment dwellers to remove holiday wreaths from their door, or insisting that communities remove Nativity scenes from parks, or compelling small towns to change “Christmas Holiday” in their high school calendars to “Winter Break.” 

The problem with the ACLU is that it is composed in equal measure of self-righteous fools and fascistic bullies.  Because so many of their members are rich and privileged, they will, on the one hand, blather on about their love of democracy, while, at the same time, assume they alone know what’s best for everyone else. 

Because they are so out of step with the majority, they can rarely have their way via a democratic ballot.  There are, in fact, only two means by which they ever have their way.  The first is by getting liberal judges to set aside election results, as they have done over such issues as capital punishment, illegal immigration, and affirmative action.  The second way is by intimidating those — be they individuals, cities or organizations – that lack the backbone or the financial wherewithal to defend themselves against the ACLU’s mob of shysters. 

If the authors of the Constitution had ever, in their worst nightmares, envisioned a group as vile as the ACLU, I feel certain that they would have rephrased the First Amendment to read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  Period!  And we’re not kidding, so help us God!” 

BurtPrelutsky@aol.com

First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a Socialist agenda.  Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher, in their commentary.  If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be.  They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean.

Step #1:  It is high time that every American be guaranteed the right to speak freely.  It is not reserved solely for left-wing college students who wish to take advantage of the first amendment to shout down conservatives.  At the same time, they must not construe the conservative’s right to dismiss them as arrogant idiots as censorship.

Step #2:  Affirmative action argues that African Americans and Latinos are intellectually inferior and are unable to compete academically unless other students are handicapped because of their race.  Interestingly enough, when blacks and Hispanic students are given these unfair advantages, it’s rarely at any cost to white students, whose rate of college admissions remains constant; instead, it’s nearly always another minority group, Asians, who pay the price.  This is what left-wingers refer to as leveling the playing field.

Step #3:  Liberals always claim to be in favor of higher taxes, agreeing with Bill Clinton that the government invariably spends money more wisely than those who actually earn it.  However, such prominent proponents of higher taxes as George Soros, Ted Kennedy and Mr. and Mrs. John Kerry, protect their own otherwise taxable income through trusts and offshore accounts.  Obviously, any American who believes higher taxes are a good thing can do the honorable thing by spurning all deductions and paying Uncle Sam everything up to 100% of his income.

Step #4:  Even the most secular of liberals seems to believe that Jimmy Carter is a saint.  The evidence for this seems to be that he has on occasion posed with a hammer in his hand at Habitat for Humanity building sites and is constantly walking around with a expression on his face that suggests he has just forgiven Pontius Pilate for betraying him.  This is the same fellow, let us never forget, who called Yasser Arafat his good friend and who has accepted untold millions of dollars from Arab cut-throats, who ask nothing in return except that he go on insisting that there would be peace in the Middle East if only those darn Israelis would disappear from the face of the earth.

Step #5:  Stop insisting that all wars are bad.  It only makes you sound daft.  Carrying signs that equate a U.S. president, any U.S. president, with Adolph Hitler is not only rude, but suggests you’re certifiably nuts.  Every president has left office right on schedule.  Aside from FDR, who just happened to get elected four times, not one of them has remained in office beyond eight years.  On the other hand, Hitler ran Germany for 12 years and only death and the allied forces brought that to an end; Stalin ran the Soviet show for 31 years; while that hero of the left, Fidel Castro, held the reins, not to mention the whip, for about 50 years.

Step #6: Repeat after me, “Separation of church and state” exists nowhere in the Constitution.  The first amendment does not require the removal of Christmas trees from the village green, the 10 Commandments from courthouse walls or “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.  All it does is forbid Congress from establishing a state religion, such as the Church of England, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar and, most likely, a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Step #7:  Stop using the word “big” as a pejorative.  There is nothing intrinsically bad about big oil, big agriculture or big pharmaceuticals.  Overall, they do a very good job of keeping our cars on the road, food on our tables and most of us over 60 alive and functioning.  On the other hand, big government, which so many liberals simply adore, represents a usurpation of the allegedly inalienable rights of individuals.  A quick perusal of the Constitution should convince you that beyond declaring war, forging treaties, overseeing patents, printing money, running the post office, collecting taxes and protecting our borders — and a few other things that Washington doesn’t do at all well these days — the federal government has very limited responsibilities.

Step #8: Acknowledge that the United Nations is, in the main, an aggregation of venal diplomats who live high off the hog in New York City while representing the most corrupt and vicious regimes in the history of the world.  Only a fool or a diplomat would continue to suggest that this gang of well-dressed thugs possesses anything resembling moral authority.

Step #9:  Do not keep insisting that at a time when nearly all the large scale evil in the world is being perpetrated by Muslims that racial profiling is anything but a sensible approach to airport security.  During WWII, Swedish Americans were not suspected of performing espionage for the Axis powers and for a very good reason; namely, because they weren’t performing espionage for the Axis powers.  These days, their Swedish American children and grandchildren are not suspected of trying to blow up airlines, but the smarmy bureaucrats insist on pretending that they’re every bit as likely to be up to mischief as a bunch of 25-year-old Osama bin Laden look-alikes from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Step #10: Stop trying to pretend that illegal aliens are the same as legal immigrants just so you can claim the moral high ground and accuse those of us who are opposed to open borders of being racists.

Step #11:  Once and for all, stop forgiving murderers.  Whether or not you’re in favor of capital punishment, only the victim of a crime has the right to grant forgiveness.  And inasmuch as the killer has deprived his victim of that ability, don’t take it upon yourself.  It doesn’t prove how compassionate you are, only that you’re as sanctimonious and as self-aggrandizing as, say, Jimmy Carter.

Step #12:  Stop bashing the U.S. military and the Boy Scouts.  The only reason you have the ability to shoot your mouth off is because men and women braver and better than you sacrificed life and limb for your right to do so.  As for the Boy Scouts, they are absolutely right to keep homosexuals from taking youngsters on camping trips.  While it’s true that many gays are perfectly fine people and that very few homosexuals are pedophiles, there’s no reason on earth to take unnecessary risks just so we can all prove how broadminded we are.  For what it’s worth, as decent as most Catholic priests are, I wouldn’t let them take youngsters into the woods, either.  It’s fine to be compassionate and understanding, but let the gays among us be understanding for a change and acknowledge that, every so often, common sense should trump political correctness.

And, finally, making this a baker’s dozen, Step #13:  Let us all agree that while being a woman, a black, a Jew, a Catholic, a Mormon or even a gay, for that matter, should in no way preclude anyone from being elected president of the United States, none of those things constitutes a very good reason to vote for someone.