The U.S. Constitution Can’t Defend Itself

AN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESSMAN SENSENBRENNER:

Cheney visits Chappaquiddick

No doubt you recall my old friend, Sid D. Complex, who’s visited with us before in this column, on rare occasions over the last four years. Well, he and I decided to take a final winter opportunity to do some small game hunting. My mouth has been watering thinking about hasenpfeffer, and Sid, as you know, has his own preferences, which don’t usually coincide with mine. But we are both keen on joining the many other carnivores in the predatory pursuit of rabbits. C’mon along, if you like, but keep your safety on when you’re busting brush, and mind where your muzzle is pointed.

Need a lawyer? Why not get a judge?

“That ain’t a bad way to open the bow hunting season.” I was admiring the nice deer my ol’ buddy, Sid D. Complex, had just cleanly killed. “How much you judge it’ll dress out to?” That was the wrong way to phrase my question.

“Don’t ask me about judges.” Sid was annoyed. “I’m tired of hearing about judges. I steer clear of ‘em. I don’t know any, and don’t care to. How ‘bout you? Who you voting for to join the club with all those liberals in the Supreme Court?”

America at the Crossroads

She was a nurse who set up field hospitals and then worked beyond exhaustion in them. These hospitals were loaded with waves of wounded and dying from the war in Europe. Her hardest work came during the Battle of the Bulge. Through her life, she has always hated war with an unrelenting and growing intensity. And, with history in the marrow of her bones, she was there, and had been at many other vigils and marches during her subsequent full and rewarding, but haunted life.

A History Lesson Learned the Easy Way

Most of them were too young to vote or have a legal drink, and shaving for many was more an assertion of manhood than an actual daily necessity. Weekend passes usually liberated the youthful G.I.s to disperse and fan out over the surrounding heartland counties in search of various releases for their raging hormones. But now, their unit happened to be the division first ready force, and was restricted to the post.

With Respect to Fallibility

Admitting and correcting our mistakes keeps us in our own good graces, as well as of those we love and care for. It returns us to the proximity of perfection. Part of the burden of leadership is that the circle of people to whom we bear responsibility for mistakes is wider. Leadership requires us to love and care for those within that circle, and to admit and correct our mistakes. Or else we do not deserve that mantle.

The White House presumes that its current occupant and advisors are infallible. It refuses to admit, much less accept responsibility for or correct any mistakes whatsoever. The buck is passed, the fall guy is a private, and private citizens pay the piper.

The King’s Rook Social Security Gambit (part 2)

In a previous column I described the intended purposes of the seventy-year-old Social Security system, and criticized the lavishly funded, ideologically and greed driven propaganda that willfully confuses the Social Security insurance program with the volatile, risky portion of an affluent investor’s portfolio. This column will highlight the nature of the crisis that threatens this vital program that insures almost all American workers and their families against consequences of loss of income when a worker dies, or becomes disabled or attains retirement age.

Programming People for the Election

Are we just wired different? That’s how some explain the widely disparate opinions and beliefs of people. But, of course, it’s not hardware that explains the political differences in the electorate. It’s software. And even my software is not that different from yours. Modify the program a bit or plug in some new or different data and maybe I’ll think like you.

A Moment of Tele-Truth

It was an awful moment, and many Americans shared it on TV. During Michael Dukakis’ failed bid for the Presidency, an interviewer asked him whether he would still feel the same way about capital punishment if his own wife or family member were a victim of a rapist murderer. Dukakis’ reply, broadcast nationwide, helped to derail his 1988 campaign.