The “H” Word

I have a brother by the name of Bruce, for whom I have absolutely no use. (That’s a pretty good start for a limerick, now isn’t it?) One day, Bruce went into see the doctor. When the Doctor tapped him on one knee with a mallet, Bruce said, “Raise taxes.” When the doctor tapped the other knee, he said, “Cut the defense budget in half.” Astonished, the doctor tapped his first knee again, to which Bruce replied, “Raise taxes again!” Just to see what would happen, the doctor tapped the other knee one more time, Bruce said, “Cut the defense budget in half again.”

Six months later, when Bruce returned to the doctor, Bruce asked him if the doctor was a Republican. After the Doctor said yes, he tapped Bruce’s right knee with the mallet. Bruce said, “You’re a racist.” The other knee: “You’re a hypocrite.” The doctor was so angry that he punched Bruce in the nose. When he recovered consciousness, he said, “And you’re a sexist, homophobic imperialist, too!” No doctor actually punched Bruce in the nose, although I think that is a wonderful idea.

One of the great things about my life is my long memory and my sense of irony. Way back in the winter of 1979/1980, Debbie Boone had a monster hit called “You Light Up My Life.” You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing it. Believe it or not, the good reverend, Jesse Jackson, actually gave a speech criticizing some of the lyrics of the song, including, “It can’t be wrong if it feels so right.” Of course, Reverend Jackson achieved such success as a moral exemplar that when Bill Clinton was going through the Monical Lewinsky Scandal, he brought Jackson to the White House for advice. What people didn’t know is that the Reverend brought his pregnant mistress with him. That was not the first time. She had aborted a previous pregnancy. When this came to light, the good reverend Jackson made amends by retiring from public life…for all of three days. To be brutally frank, the same conduct that would ruin a white man’s career is no big deal in the black community. If Jesse Jackson manages to father four more illegitimate children, he might manage to become head of the NAACP or get the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Maryland. (Think I’m kidding, look up Kweise Mfume.”)

My all-time favorite bit of liberal hypocrisy is the Valerie Plame kerfluffle. Is a law prohibiting revealing the exposure of an undercover CIA operative constitutional? In Great Britain, the Official Secrets Act would apply. In the United States, it’s much more of an open question. Second, do liberals care about the life of a CIA agent? (My collaborator wonders if that statement is fair.) My reply is that if one of the planes on 9.11 had hit CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a sizable segment of the liberal intelligentsia would be either ecstatically happy, or, a the minimum, would shed crocodile tears about America’s chickens coming home to roost. Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, did NOT leak the identity of Valerie Plame to the press. The investigation showed definitively that Libby was not the leaker. It was proven, however, that Libby lied to the FBI about a number of matters and was convicted of perjury. President Bush subsequently commuted his sentence, though Libby did lose his license to practice law. (And, as an attorney, I disagree with those who say that wasn’t punishment enough.) I hope my liberal friends will take note of this point: after the events of 1999, I’m never going to take liberals seriously when they get outraged about a Republican committing perjury. And after the events of January 2001, I most assuredly will laugh out loud at liberals being shocked about misuse of the pardon power.