Ken Tucker

Lowlights from an elitist frustrated over his inability to defend President FailureTeleprompter: [emphasis added]

Huntsman was undoubtedly relieved he didn’t have to stand on-stage Monday night to face the most raucous, roused-rabble audience of any Republican debate held thus far.

[T]he people in the seats hailed lustily the history lesson offered by “Professor” Newt Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson knew what to do with his enemies — he killed them.”

It was a wild, schizo crowd. They yelled their approval of Rick Perry’s suggestion that America should “go to zero on foreign aid.”

The audience showed a nasty streak in the booing Fox questioner Juan Williams for asking Gingrich[.]

The jeers that erupted the second Williams uttered the phrase “black Americans” was chilling on this Martin Luther King Day. Gingrich didn’t help matters much when he said a bit later, “Barack Obama has put more people on food stamps than any president in history.”

It was a light laugh line in a night that was heavy with malice — not from the candidates, but their supporters. Moderator Bret Baier might have done a bit more to try and quell the mob.

What Tucker is doing is trying to scare off moderates from joining the “nasty mob.” This is the same approach these MSM liars used against the Tea Party.

And the left obviously hates the fact that Obama owns the food stamp record, so it’s now racist to speak the truth, especially on Martin Luther King Day — because we all know Dr. King would want his day used as racial club to stop people from speaking the truth. You know, because he was all about that. For Tucker to exploit one of our greatest Americans in such a cynical, divisive, and racially charged way is about as low as you can get.

But it’s early in the election, and you can bet the house Tucker and company haven’t come close to hitting a bottom.

People always accuse me of hating the media. I’m just hating them back.

Dirty Harry could be both a hearty conservative slap to the Warren Court and also the only thing between democracy and a group of vigilante fascist cops.

“J. Edgar,” released today, is no different.

But to gauge Eastwood’s achievement in examining a controversial figure, virtues as well as warts and all, one should look at previous cinematic portrayals of the FBI director. In “Chaplin,” Hoover is depicted as a prissy anti-communist who does not forget the silent film star slighting him back in the twenties. His decades-long vengeance is complete when Chaplin gives him the sword to fell the actor with, courtesy of Charlie’s peccadilloes.

“Citizen Cohn” played down the vengeance theme and instead portrayed the director, played by the very masculine Pat Hingle, as an avuncular figure. Hoover, a master of blackmail via wiretaps, has the tables turned on him because of his homosexual relationship with Clyde Tolson. Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” was perhaps the most flagrant attempt to out Hoover. In the film, Hoover (Bob Hoskins) reveals his sexual preferences by having a servant boy orally remove a piece of fruit the director placed on his aged lips. But Stone, in true fashion, isn’t content to rest on this one controversy.

His Hoover is the closest thing we’ve had to that gay Nazi Ernst Roehm; in a scene with Nixon, he speaks of the “establishment fighting back,” promises to help Nixon win the presidency via his enemies lists, and thus exudes such evil that animals won’t come near him.

Eastwood humanizes the director, showing how such a figure was shaped by both his formative experience (the Palmer Raids of the 1920s) and his mother, whom he lived with until her death. As played by Judi Dench, she is a Mommie Dearest, demanding both subservience and a rigid morality impossible to fulfill. Crippled with guilt and an accompanying voyeurism, Hoover can experience love but never act on it.

Eastwood subtly accepts that Hoover was probably gay, activated by his lifelong friend and live-in companion, Clyde Tolson. Rather than hit the viewer over the head with Hoover’s predilections a la Stone, Eastwood very cleverly rigs the game. His Clyde Tolson doesn’t physically resemble the real life beetle-browed hair-receding figure; he instead casts Armie Hammer, an actor of golden boy handsomeness that recalls Jude Law in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (another figure pined after romantically by a man) shows audiences why Hoover would be attracted to Tolson.

But the attraction is only evident by the sweat on Hoover’s upper lip when meeting him, or in Eastwood’s camera angles of Hoover and Tolson in the elevator in which both look like they are laying side by side in bed. Eastwood also allows that there might have been actual terrorists in the sweeping deportations young Hoover made while apprenticing under the notorious A. Mitchell Palmer.

He also shows there was indeed a gangster threat in the ’30s as well as a communist one in the Cold War. Then Eastwood the civil libertarian kicks in, and he shows how Hoover’s dirt-digging and moral vanity marred how he viewed Martin Luther King and the peaceful sections of the anti-war movement.

All in all, “J. Edgar” is the fullest portrait of this character we have yet on film. An old saying is that it takes a paranoid to recognize a paranoid. But Eastwood’s film is so balanced that it should be amended to read it takes a libertarian to recognize a historical figure in all their complexity.

In the Wall Street Journal, film writer Anthony Kaufman did a fairly straight-forward interview with “The Undefeated” writer/director Steve Bannon. Fine. Good. Proper. Afterwards, though, Kaufman then took to his usual perch at indieWIRE to let his true feelings be known. Mostly, his indieWIRE piece reflects the usual nonsense-complaints coming from the Left over why a documentary specifically produced to tell the story of Governor Palin the MSM refused to tell doesn’t rehash everything the MSM has already rehashed ad nauseum for the last three years.

Blah-blah-blah. Whine-whine-whine. Boo-hoo-hoo. Heaven forbid the public learns the full truth and context about a potential presidential candidate minus everything they’ve already had tattooed on their brain. Then, however, Kaufman gets to this unbelievably offensive and revealing sentence:

For me, the most shocking moment in “The Undefeated,” however, comes with the appearance of a black person about two-thirds of the way through.

No matter how many times I read this (and there’s more), I’m left almost speechless.

Almost.

This “black person” Kaufman references does have a name … and it’s Sonnie Johnson. She’s a person, not a symbol, and she has a mind of her own.  A very good mind.

Before I let Ms. Johnson speak for herself, I’m going to go ahead and call Anthony Kaufman an elitist bigot. You see, the reason the arrival of a black face likely shocked him is probably due to the fact that he’s never bothered to attend a real Tea Party … or maybe Kaufman simply can’t bring himself to recognize Thomas Sowell, Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Lloyd Marcus, Sonja Schmidt, Herman Cain, JC Watts, Alan Keyes, Michael Steele, Frances Rice, Jennifer Carroll, Allen West, Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Tim Scott (need I go on…?) as “real black people” due to their awful, sell-out, Uncle Tomming Republican-ness.

Maybe if Mr. Kaufman would take a cue from Ms. Johnson and start to think for himself, he wouldn’t find the onscreen arrival of a black face in support of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party so gosh-darned ”shocking.” Obviously, all Kaufman saw in Ms. Johnson was the color of her skin, which betrays something about him, no?

Kaufman’s issues with non-white conservatives truly rears its ugly head in his next sentence:

I’m not sure if it’s what Bannon had in mind when he wanted to seize the audience’s attention, but the arrival of black conservative female activist Sonnie Johnson made me realize just how white everyone appears to be, in both Palin’s Alaska and Bannon’s Tea Party.

He’s “not sure what Bannon had in mind when he wanted to seize the audience’s attention”?

Wow.

Next time, Kaufman should save himself all that typing and simply write: T-O-K-E-N.

And now — at the risk of further shocking Kaufman — I’ll let Sonnie Johnson speak for herself:

Anthony Kaufman published a little blog piece on IndieWire.  In it he takes shots at Stephen Bannon, Writer and Director of ”The Undefeated”.  Bannon is a grown man and he can speak for himself.  But I will tell you what I tell everyone else that asks how I got involved in the the film; Not only is Bannon a genius, he also has good taste.  In case you didn’t check your facts, Bannon also included two blacks in “Fire from the Heartland”.  And after that interview he gave me the best advice I’ve received. “They will try to change you.  People will tell you what you could be, what you should be, or what they can make you.  Don’t let them take away that which makes you great.”

And I haven’t. …

I was able to meet Gov. Palin in Pella, IA for the premiere of “The Undefeated”.  One of the first things she said to me was, “are you ready for all the hate that will come your way for being associated with me”.  I told her, “I’ve got Palin in my blood”.  I wish you would’ve known that little fact before you would downgrade me to the token black in your limited view of the Tea Party.  I am no one’s token.  Nor am I a punchline of what you think is a bad joke.  If seeing me in the film was such a shock to your cerebral, then why didn’t you grow a sack and interview me yourself?  Or is Breitbart right and your lack of a set is shown in your need to hide behind a blogpost. Are you a Enuch? …

If you want to know how Black I am, I dare you interview me yourself.  Just tell me when and where.   I’ll come to you.  It would be my pleasure.  Until then be grateful that, temporarily, you still have Obamacare.  If my appearance was a shock to you, then just wait until our voices are really heard. 

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

“…Particularly as African-Americans, I feel we are in no real position to idealize the American experience and get too choked up about institutions and symbols that were not created with us in mind. Certainly, we cannot cast our lot with those who are actively seeking to destroy those gains we have made.”

I have a number of issues with the above statement, not the least of which is that the principles that inspired the American founding were always viewed as universal principles, which applied to all of mankind. Curiously, it wasn’t until the introduction of Historicist and Darwinian philosophy (which gave birth to Progressivism) that some Americans began to argue otherwise. And of course, I disagree that conservatives are actively seeking to destroy all of the gains black America has made.

It is important to note that the sentiments that my friend expresses are similar to the political attitudes which continue to permeate much of the black community. These same attitudes are also particularly present in the thinking of the black leftists, who have long held the conviction that the existence of slavery at our nation’s founding renders our Constitution a hollow document; the institutions and symbols that sprang from the founding were bereft of moral authority; the founders were hypocrites and liars, and the American dream is little more than a cruel myth.

From this conviction a kind of “cultural revolutionary defiance” has arisen, that is to say: black authenticity began to be increasingly measured by the degree to which black people defined themselves by way of their ethnicity, expressed anger at historical injuries, and were critical of, or rejected American symbols and institutions.

In this respect, my friend is a true new-revolutionary. But the issue he raises is not a new one, neither is it exclusive to American blacks.

In July of 1858, Abraham Lincoln addressed the question of how almost half of the citizens of this country could take pride and ownership in the accomplishments of the nation when they were not “historically related” to the founders, or those living on these shores at the time of the founding. Lincoln answered: “If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together–that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

The essential element that my friend and the black leftists have missed is that what binds us together as Americans is not shared blood, race, ethnicity, or tribe; it is the unshakable belief in certain universal principles. The American experience is not attached to men who were flawed, but is instead fixed to ideas that remain flawless. The institutions and symbols of America are reflective of the revolutionary idea that all men are the property of God, created with an equal right to life, liberty, private property, and the free pursuit of bettering their station in life. Martin Luther King, Jr., put it more succinctly: “The American dream reminds us…that every man is an heir of the legacy of dignity and worth.”

All of us, whether our ancestors arrived through the gates of Ellis Island or survived travel through the Middle Passage are heirs to that grand idea. It is this idea that animates true conservatism and moreover, it is ONLY that idea—those principles—that made possible the huge gains that black Americans have made in this country and indeed in the world. It is, perhaps, also the reason that more Africans have freely chosen to come to America than were ever imported in slave ships.

In response to my friend, all Americans should ask: If not America, where? If not American symbols, which symbols? If not American institutions, which institutions will do? If not the principles of the American founding, upon which principles do the black left propose to build a new America—an America they can “idolize” and “get choked up about”?

Ask Van Jones.

These forward-thinking paragons, nursed on the mother’s-milk of Marx and Mao, would build their new America on the bedrock of economic redistribution and racial favoritism. I believe we tried that once in this country…

—–

Hollywood Values:

Everyday people gather to protest in favor of civil rights = good.

Everyday people gather to protest in favor of farmworkers = good.

Everyday people gather to protest in favor of smaller government  = evil, stupid, racist, terrorists.

And that my friends sums up both Saul Alinsky and Alec Baldwin.

The most offensive part of Baldwin’s two minute propagasm is his conflating of the moral and just cause that was the Civil Rights movement with Alinsky tactics. If the the Alinskyites were anywhere at that time it was in the sex/drugs movement to abandon our allies in Vietnam.

And we all know how that turned out.

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 

This dream was significantly realized two years later, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but not fully, as King’s assassination in 1968 painfully emphasized. 

The debate continues over how fully Dr. King’s dream has been realized. This debate spurred first-time filmmaker Craig Bodeker to make “A Conversation About Race,” a documentary that strikes at the core of American racism. 

I highly recommend this film. It will open the eyes of anyone with questions. I say this because it opened mine. 

Just over 40 years after Dr. King’s assassination, the first black president resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Minorities have been elected to every branch of government and work in every sector of American life. 

So what prompts a man like President Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to declare that “racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run“? Further, how can he allege that Americans “believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God“? 

Obama, trying to distance himself from such comments, condemned Wright’s words in a Philadelphia speech. He said that “… race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America—to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.” 

Bodeker acknowledges Wright’s and Obama’s comments and embraces the call to face this issue. His documentary is a compilation of interviews with a wide variety of Denver, Colorado residents in different age groups, from different backgrounds, of different sexes and races. Bodeker asks a series of questions in a straightforward manner, occasionally asking a leading question. But such questions are presented openly, and the film as a whole allows the viewer to make up their own mind, since the interview subjects are individuals that believe racism is alive and well in America. 

One of the most important things that Bodeker points out is the transformation of what racism was to what people believe it is today. In the past, racism was tangible. Whites ate in restaurants, blacks bought carry-out from the kitchen; whites had one bathroom, blacks had another. True American racism has been dramatically documented in the one-of-a-kind book “Black Like Me” by under-cover journalist John Howard Griffin, who disguised himself as a black man in order to live life in the shoes of another race. 

This documentary also opens eyes. It gives viewers insight into the minds of those who believe in racism, to see the foundation of their arguments. 

Bodeker takes a no-nonsense approach to his filmmaking style. He bluntly lays out what he is going to do: interview believers in racism and look for inconsistencies—he calls them “disconnects.” 

From the start, Bodeker states his purpose: “I … can’t think of another issue that is more artificial, manufactured … than this whole construct called racism.” Bodeker said he is suspicious of those who use the term racism because it no longer means what it once did. It is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” But Bodeker says believers in racism now “feel that racism is all around them, its everywhere all the time yet they have a hard time coming up with any real life examples of it, or even a definition of what it is.” 

His subjects unwittingly support this statement. They list about 10 “racist” incidents, including staring, being cautious, thinking that “black people are loud,” noticing race and self-diagnosed bigotry. None are “more racist” than these. 

Can such “racist” actions be compared to the racism that blacks experienced in the past? If you think so, then the Oscar-winning film “Crash” takes your thinking to its logical conclusion: If such actions are racist, then we are all racist. In following the intertwined lives of racially diverse Los Angeles residents, “Crash” shows ways that all people think or act differently toward people of other races. But none of the events in the film are remotely akin to what Bodeker’s subjects mentioned. “Crash” focuses on heavy racial tensions that none of his subjects have faced. 

Cristóbal Kruzen’s award-winning film “Final Solution” reveals what racism was only a few years ago in apartheid era South Africa (as does “Invictus,” which Carl Kozlowski reviewed for BH not long ago). It is based on the true story of Gerrit Wolfaardt, a white supremacist with a plan to purge South Africa of its black population. But his relationships with a pretty co-ed and a black pastor open his eyes, and his struggle between inner racial and religious inclinations climaxes as he stares down the barrel of a rifle. (It is a well-written and realistic film, with the country’s racial hatred efficiently displayed. While some of the supporting actors are average, the leads for the most part deliver.) 

These two films, and countless newsreels from the 1960s, clearly reveal that racism in the United States isn’t what it used to be, if it exists at all. Yet many Americans cling to racism as a go-to issue still plaguing us. 

I’ve struggled with this popular form of racism, afraid that noticing someone’s skin color or being overly sensitive to someone else’s culture makes me racist. This film helped me see the light. By that definition, everyone is racist. No one can say they haven’t noticed someone else’s skin color, even supposed civil rights champions—see this week’s controversy over senate majority leader Harry Reid’s comments about President Obama.

The question then is, would Dr. King, if he were alive today, see our country and think that his dream has been realized? Or would he believe we are far from the mark? If so, have we overcompensated, or fallen short? I’m in the overcompensation camp, but hey, I’m a white male. 

American slavery and racism are two of the ugliest blotches in our nation’s history. But crying “racism” in petty instances demeans the work of Dr. King and the countless men and women who fought with him for racial equality. Further, obsessively demanding retribution for crimes committed against others by others makes it easy to neglect one’s responsibility for their own actions and achievements. Still not convinced? See this film and join the conversation.

I suggest you continue going to the town hall meetings and voice your concerns.  And, do not be afraid to get angry.  The Democrat and Republican Congressmen must know they will not be reelected if HR 3200 passes as it is currently written.  But, please, do not get violent.  Violence at these meetings will do nothing except make the opposition look weak and dumb, and hurt the path of democracy.  Violence at these meetings is similar to me being called a racist this week because I stated on a public forum that HR 3200 should not pay for medical services for illegal immigrants.  Remember the protest ways of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

The attendance at the town halls is working!  Within the past twenty-four hours, a few Senate and House Members, including one Democrat, stated they will not pass a bill with the current language regarding even the possibility of the so called death panels.  Keep up the good work America!  The people are winning! 

The power of the people brings to mind the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which is very short, but is also one of the most controversial sections of the document.  There are many people who believe that it is the primary cause of the Civil War: i.e. did the states, not the Federal Government have the right to determine whether to be slave or free?  Ronald Reagan believed in the amendment more than anything else, as did Thomas Jefferson.  It simply states in its entirety:  “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 

There are many people that feel that the Constitution was already clear on this issue and that the Tenth Amendment is actually a redundancy.  However, the Supreme Court has, within the last 25 years, actually used the Tenth Amendment as a rationale in deciding a few cases.  See, e.g. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985).  Prior to these cases, the rationale used exclusively by the Supreme Court for limiting States’ rights was the Commerce Clause of the Constitution which is very simple on its face.  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution states:  “[The Congress shall have power] to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”  This simple phrase as interpreted by the Supreme Court has given Congress the authority to slowly strip away powers granted to the States specifically in the Constitution and through the Tenth Amendment.  In its most simplistic form, the Supreme Court has determined that everything legislated by Congress has some effect on Interstate Commerce and therefore, is within the power of the Federal Government.  Maybe, the Supreme Court is now changing its analysis?

So, will power come back to the States or the people in the future?  If Ron Paul had been elected President, the answer would have definitely been yes.  In fact, we would be looking at the end of the Federal Reserve too which is probably a good thing.  But, unfortunately the answer is currently “no”.  President Obama, through his executive powers and the use of Congress, is turning the Federal Government into the ultimate power.  Health Care is just one example. 

Any normal interpretation of the Tenth Amendment would imply that health care and its regulation should be a power reserved to the states and/or the people.  This is also the case with marriage and other personal issues.  However, by the power of the Commerce Clause, the Federal Government will be able to regulate it unless the Supreme Court radically changes precedent. 

I wonder why no one is bringing up the Tenth Amendment at these town hall meetings.  Maybe, people should start arguing it while they are mentioning the other problems with HR 3200.  Give the power back to the people in deciding personal issues, including, but not limited to health care.

A few closing thoughts.  In the last week, my favorite target, Nancy Pelosi, put her foot in her mouth again.  How dare she say that citizens protesting HR 3200 are un-American.  If anything, she is being un-American for making that statement.  Remember, freedom of speech and assembly is a right in this country.  I suggest Her Arrogance, Ms. Pelosi, read the Constitution before she opens her mouth in the future.  We already know she is not going to read HR 3200 even though she allegedly drafted it.  The least she can do is read the Constitution.  In fact, it should be a requirement that all Congressmen have a copy of that little document in their pocket 24 hours a day.  It is good reference material, especially when they’re thinking of violating it.

Lastly, I would like to state that one of the main proponents of the HR 3200 is Joe Sestak from Pennsylvania.  For all of my readers in his district and surrounding districts in Pennsylvania, let him know his job is on the line.  This man is thinking of running against Arlen Specter and has delusions of even greater power.  I have seen him speak.  He is a true liberal and must be stopped in the same way Nancy Pelosi and her other cronies must be stopped by voting them out of office.

On the economy, do not let the President’s propaganda machine fool you, this recession is definitely not over.  In fact, it appears that we are in the first deflationary spiral in this country since the Great Depression.  Based upon the CPI announcement this morning, consumer prices have fallen 2.1% over the past twelve months.  The last time that happened was 1950.  And, it has not happened this extensively since the Great Depression.  And, I do not know if it has ever happened at a time when the government is printing so much paper money.  If we were not printing paper money, how low would prices have fallen; ten percent, twenty percent or more?

Last week, I failed to mention that the Jekyll Island book about the Federal Reserve which I recommended was referred to me by my good friend Robert Spaeth.  It is also recommended reading by Ron Paul.  Again, check it out.

In closing, I would like to repeat.  Keep up the good work at the town hall meetings.  Let us destroy HR 3200 and hopefully, the Senate will be able to write a true bipartisan health care reform bill.  It is the only chance we have as the Senate might try to stop the Democratic onslaught in the House. 

©2009 by Frank T. DeMartini.  Permission to copy will be freely given upon request.

I was listening to evil talk radio in the car and did hear and read a number of reports on the event.  Depending on whom I was listening to, it was a freak show/circus, a fitting memorial or “not as bad as I thought it might be.”

I always thought of Mr. Jackson as a talented singer/dancer/songwriter who had poor impulse control. I thought this was due to the fact that the leeches and toadies who depended on him for money never said one simple word to him: “No!” Apparently I was very wrong! Until I heard and read reports from his memorial, I was unaware of his role in our society as everything from a civil rights pioneer to basketball coach. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pat Riley, take a break, the king of pop has got your back. I heard he was quite the philanthropist too; although there isn’t a Michael Jackson Foundation, he did at one time donate a reported $22 million to a single California family.

The weekend before the deification of Mr. Jackson, there was another small media event which got a lot of coverage: the resignation of Sarah Palin. If you still have any doubt that there is a vast left-wing media conspiracy in this country all you need to do is look at the coverage of these two people and these events by alleged journalists.

On Tuesday, July 7th the Chicago Tribune featured a half page mocking Ms. Palin by Rob Manker on page three. Page three is usually where one might find the hard news of the day, but not in the Trib when there is a conservative to be skewered. Did this paper give the same kind ribbing to Mr. Jackson at any point?

I use the Chicago Tribune only as an example. The general tone of the reporting of these two events from television to the New York Times was to elevate and rehabilitate the reputation on Mr. Jackson and to denigrate that of Ms. Palin.

The real divide in this country is not political but cultural. As far as I know Michael Jackson was not political. I doubt if he even voted in the last election. The picture of him coming out of the voting booth may have shown up somewhere. He may have voted absentee but I am pretty sure if he had voiced an opinion on the election it would have been reported. Yet the media holds up this man as an icon to be admired. A talented man who lived an extremely degenerate and narcissistic life is not only exonerated but also held up and praised.

Sarah Palin, a woman who has served God, her country, and raised a family is mocked. Why?  Bcause she doesn’t fit the stereotype that the media prefers for successful and powerful women. She is from humble origins and has worked for everything she has gotten. The real sin of Ms. Palin is that she is not only a conservative but a devout Christian. To the east coast, Ivy League, taxicab progressives, allowing morality into government is the greatest stupidity.

God-kings are not new on the stage of human history, nor do they exclusively occupy the dusty corners of the distant past. One need only look to the Japanese worship of Emperor Hirohito during World War II to see that an industrialized, modern country can still vest in its leaders supernatural authority. And there are far more subtle ways of making divinity out of men as well.

The Apostle Paul was warned two-thousand years ago that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Certainly his intention was to illuminate to the self-righteous that they do not live up to an actual standard of perfection, but perhaps there is more. For as surely as a man might be blind to his own failings, there seems to be some propensity in man to be selectively blind to the failings of others as well. This selective blindness may have many causes and find many expressions.  Some in our society carry cultural guilt and fear of accusations of bigotry that cause them to hold entire social, racial, and religious groups to different standards of judgment than others.  Still, it is the elevation of individuals above common scrutiny that creates idols of men. Whether it is a rock-star or actor, sportsman or elected leader, holding any man above reproach is folly, for in ceding to anyone our power to critique them, we grant them power man was not meant to have.

Now, to some, this double standard of generosity may seem harmless enough.  After all it might be argued that most people are far too judgmental as it is.  However it is no less sinister to apply a positive double-standard than it is a negative one. Both of these biases have the same result on the individual making the unfair judgment – by limiting the individual’s ability to accurately see the humanity of the judged, they falsely color that individual’s understanding of the human condition in general. Just as the thoughtless demonization of any person renders them sub-human to the person making the judgment, and therefore their choices, actions, and motives are no longer subject to the same thoughtful consideration as those of others, Hero-Worship creates a blindness in which it is not necessary to consider the fundamental humanity of the so-called hero, nor is it necessary to emulate their actual virtues or accomplishments. After all, if Hitler is simply the most evil creature to ever live, why question the motives, politics, or persuasions by which his actual, human evil was allowed to thrive? Similarly, if a Martin Luther King, Jr. was simply better than everyone else by design, what point is there in attempting to follow his virtuous lead?

This power that hero-worship imbues in its champions is also a narcotic that dulls the mind of the worshiper, and allows and even promotes abuses by the worshiped.

Clearly, this is the case with the current President of the United States. With so many people seeing President Obama as a super-human, almost religious figure, and placing so many of their hopes on his shoulders, they blind themselves to the reality of the man, both his better qualities as well as his more troubling ones. Any accusation of wrong-doing or hubris is instantly and angrily rejected by the faithful as an attack on a man who is simply above petty criticism. He can do no wrong, and further, no one else can do the good that he might. He is, as Evan Thomas so aptly and honestly put it, “standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of a God.” There is nothing more dangerous than this kind of isolation of a man from the restraining power of common criticism, especially one who by his office already has so much power over so many and so much. After all, if criticism is suppressed and virtues are seen as intrinsic and not attained or attainable, an elected leader doesn’t actually answer to the will of the people at all, rather, the people exist to validate his will.

For man to truly be free, he must reject elevating any human to super-human stations, reserving such worship exclusively for the truly divine. Christ may be perfect, but President Obama is only a man. A compelling case can be made that George Washington was one of the best men who has ever lived. The Indispensable Man, he twice surrendered his sword, and almost absolute power, to the new country he had bled to create when frankly most people would have preferred he kept it. But this same great man had great failings, not least of which were his somewhat nuanced views on human slavery.

If even a man with the moral fortitude of Washington did not escape the human condition, then what man could? I can say without shame that there is no public figure alive who I hold in higher esteem than I hold George W. Bush. I realize the cultural-correctness barons who have demonized him for the last eight years will recoil at the fact, but I would rather have some BBQ or sit on a fishing boat with 43 than meet a Beatle. He was true to his convictions, and he exuded a grace and good-will to his enemies even when beset on all sides by a recklessly hostile, slandering, hate-filled media and opposition.  President Bush is as close as I have to a hero. But I am not fooled by my affection into believing he was superior to his mold. Despite the public claims of exuding calm, I have little doubt what was going through the president’s mind during those excruciating seven minutes in the school-house in Florida in 2001. Fear. We’re being attacked? Confusion. If we’re being attacked, why aren’t they pulling me out of here? Uncertainty. Am I supposed to be doing something or did I misunderstand? The sort of very human things any of us might have felt in that sort of situation. Would I have preferred that he sprung to his feet, strode to his jet, and took command of the war we did not yet know we were in? Sure. I would rather he hadn’t passed TARP, articulated conservative principles like Reagan, and defended himself against his hate-drunk critics too, but I don’t look for God-like perfection in human beings. Even Presidents. Especially Presidents. I have an actual God for that, so my admiration for Mr. Bush can survive exposure to his actual humanity expressly because it isn’t built on the false premise that he has none. It is respect, not worship, and it is a deep respect.

Because in application, worship is all a man requires to reign as a God. Hold one man to a more generous standard, bind him by a less restrictive set of rules than you do other men, and you give to him transcendent powers no matter what secular name you might call him by. If you make that man-God the leader of a country, then he is a God-King as surely as any who has gone before, and making a God-King of a man only makes slaves of the rest, no matter how he uses his authority or for what. This is what the idea of separation of Church and State was actually meant to protect us from, un-checked executives consolidating personal-religious powers. Let us direct our prayers elsewhere that we might have eyes to see this man as man.