Putting Liberals on the Couch
by Burt Prelutsky

Being a conservative, I naturally spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to psychoanalyze left-wingers, trying to figure out what makes them tick. God knows I’m not bragging. It is, after all, time I could otherwise devote to alphabetizing my canned goods or trying to make contact with Harry Houdini, but I know from the large number of emails I receive that I’m not alone. The lunacy on the left is enough to turn a lot of us into little Sigmund Freuds.

For instance, why is it that lefties are so puzzled or pretend to be so puzzled that conservatives who are in favor of capital punishment are opposed to abortions — particularly the 60,000 late-term abortions performed by the late unrepentant serial killer, George Tiller? Even a left-winger should be able to tell the difference between executing a cold-blooded murderer and sucking the brain out of an innocent little human being.

I’m wondering when the Mafia will officially ask for a government subsidy. Yes, I know it’s a criminal organization, but so is ACORN, which faces indictments for voter fraud in several states, and yet Obama and his Democratic cronies are funneling them millions of dollars.

Perhaps if liberals were merely wrong on all the issues, it would be easier to forgive them. But it’s their arrogance and self-righteous attitude that puts them beyond the pale. How often have we heard them claim that they’re being deprived of their right to free speech when what they’re actually complaining about isn’t censorship, but merely that a clear-thinking conservative has refuted some of their inane hogwash? Only liberals actually believe that if you disagree with them, you’re trampling on the 1st Amendment. For good measure, many of them — including a number of pettifoggers in Congress — are on an unholy mission to bring back the totalitarian device known as the Fairness Doctrine.

Speaking of fairness, I have come to see that Fox News is something like our own version of Radio Free Europe, getting the truth to those of us behind the Obama Curtain. What is ironic about the way that liberals carry on about TV Free America is that Fox has a large number of liberals on the payroll, including Greta Van Susteren, Bob Beckel, Geraldo Rivera, Alan Colmes, Chris Wallace, Juan Williams, Kirsten Powers and a few others, whereas CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times and the Washington Post, collectively, have only one non-liberal on salary and that’s John Stossel, who doesn’t even identify himself as a conservative, but as a libertarian.

A question nobody has ever answered to my satisfaction is how it’s possible that media people such as David Corn, Eleanor Clift and Ellis Henican, who do nothing but parrot the same insipid DNC talking points as Charles Rangel, Barbara Boxer and Patrick Leahy, are able to make a decent living without at least having to run for office and win an election.

I’m not an expert on body language, but my attention has been called to the fact that when he was on the phone with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama was photographed with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office, and when he took his photo op tour of Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel, he had his hands in his pockets. Yet in the august presence of King Abdullah, he bowed respectfully.

Finally, we were told that the world’s leaders were going to cooperate with Barack Hussein Obama in a way they never had with his predecessor. Well, so far, they’ve all refused his invitation to send troops to Afghanistan and, just in case he didn’t get the message, they’ve all refused to take 241 Muslim terrorists off his hands.

Now, we have Newsweek’s managing editor, Evan Thomas, grandson of the former grand Poo Bah of the Socialist Party, Norman Thomas, telling us with a straight face that Obama is greater than God. It appears, however, that the world’s leaders don’t even think he’s greater than George W. Bush.

Wanted: A Vaccine for Liberalism
by Burt Prelutsky

Whenever I have suggested that left-wingers aren’t normal human beings, and have wondered if perhaps they’re some weird interplanetary life form like the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the liberals accuse me of indulging in ad hominem attacks, and I suppose I am. But I am honestly bewildered. It just doesn’t seem plausible that Americans could find good things to say about tyrants like Castro, Chavez and Ahmadinejad, while at the same time reviling the likes of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and General Petraeus.

Left-wingers side with the so-called Palestinians and insist that their country was stolen from them by the Jews, but when you ask them just exactly where the country was located, what their flag looked like and who their president was, they huff and they puff and they denounce you as a tool of the Jewish lobby.

Liberals argue for the sanctity of the 1st amendment as if they had personally invented free speech, but they’re the same people who’d like to use the Fairness Doctrine to turn off the microphones of conservative talk show hosts. Furthermore, they are so terrified of hearing or letting other people hear the words of those who disagree with them that they boo their opponents into silence on those rare occasions when conservatives are invited to speak on college campuses.

When George W. Bush and the GOP were in control from 2000-2006, the Democrats complained, generally without cause, that they didn’t have enough influence, that the Republicans didn’t reach out to them, even though John McCain, to name one, spent so much time reaching out that Cindy McCain began to worry that she’d lost her husband to Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy. These days, those same Democrats are so eager to disenfranchise Republicans that they’re ready to do anything up to and including sending the entire stimulus package to Minnesota if only they’ll make Al Franken a senator.

Speaking of senators, what’s the idea of Republicans Martinez, Bunning, Hutchinson and Brownback, announcing that this is their last term? If I could suck it up and vote for McCain last November, the least these four can do is sign on for another six years. It’s not as if being a U.S. senator calls for any heavy lifting. Heck, if Robert Byrd can do it, Sam Brownback certainly can. This is simply no time for Republicans to go AWOL.

I admit that I’ve been delighted to see Nancy Pelosi catching some heat for lying about not knowing that waterboarding was taking place. Initially, I think she claimed she was confused by the term, believing it meant that the prisoners at Gitmo were learning to surf. But things didn’t get a lot better when it came out that she had only bothered attending one of about 70 congressional meetings where the subject was discussed. I suppose she was busy getting Botox injections. But that doesn’t mean I want to see the Democrats replace her. I mean, it’s not as if they’d give the job to Eric Cantor or John Boehner. I’m sure they’d simply replace the incompetent Speaker of the House with someone like Barney Frank, the embarrassing lisper of the House.

Left-wingers are always wringing their hands over separation of church and state. What we should all be arguing for is separation of communication and state. What right does the federal government have supporting NPR, PBS and the NEA? Frankly, I’d be opposed to the feds spending taxpayer dollars to fund public radio, public TV and the arts, even if they weren’t all run by left-wingers. I’m sure liberals think I’m lying, but I’m not. Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given the authority to meddle in these matters, and once it does, it opens itself up to charges of censorship or collusion. Is there anyone who believes that NPR or PBS will ever question anything President Obama says or does? Of course not. Liberals in the media claim they speak truth to power, which sounds good, but would sound a lot better if they ever spoke truth when their own darlings were the ones in power.

It’s bad enough when NBC goes into the tank for the president, but NBC is not subsidized by the American taxpayer. If the liberals want to disseminate left-wing propaganda, I say let them do it the old-fashioned way. Let Howard Dean and the entire DNC crawl to George Soros and ask him to pay for it.

Finally, whenever someone gripes about the pay raises, perks, health care and pensions that politicians provide for themselves, we’re told how much more money these “public servants” could make in the private sector, and I have to laugh. These egotistical dunderheads would have to be running major corporations — assuming there will be any of those left by the time Obama gets done — to have the kind of fiefdoms that come with being in Congress. Can you seriously imagine Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter or John Murtha, running a store, let alone a major corporation? For that matter, can you even imagine Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter or John Murtha, being hired to sweep out a store?

Labeling or Libeling Obama
by Burt Prelutsky

Certain conservative commentators have begun taking exception to those of us who have identified Barack Obama as a socialist, a communist or a left-wing ideologue. The worst thing some of these people are willing to say about the president is that he’s a proponent of big government and increased federal spending. But that also describes George W. Bush. What would make it so ironic is that during last year’s campaign, the Democrats kept saying that voting for John McCain was the same as electing Bush to a third term.

When I recently compared Obama’s spending spree to that of a drunken sailor, a few readers, including Larry Reznick, took umbrage, pointing out that the sailor is spending his own money, not ours. So I am taking this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies to drunken sailors everywhere.

In discussing the sort of person he’d like to appoint to the Supreme Court, replacing Justice Souter, who, in announcing his retirement, made his first good decision in 19 years, President Obama emphasized compassion. I’m afraid that’s exactly the sort of statement you have to expect when you put an ex-community organizer in a job above his pay grade. Compassion should no more be a prerequisite for sitting on the Supreme Court than the ability to balance a basketball on one’s nose or to juggle flatware. The job calls for someone who understands what the forefathers meant when they wrote the Constitution and to have the ability to interpret the document in the manner that those gentlemen intended when they put pen to parchment.

The judges are not supposed to right what they regard as historical wrongs or to give greater weight to legal matters because the plaintiffs are rich or poor, black or white, atheists or believers. I want my wife, my friends and my relatives to be compassionate, but I want my judges to be objective, rational and well aware of the fact that they are members of the judicial branch of the government, and not de facto members of the executive or legislative.

It seems that Obama was at least prescient about one thing. As a candidate, he insisted that America would have greater influence in foreign countries once he was elected. Well, it turns out he was right. In England, it was recently discovered that a number of legislators and government ministers have been using public funds to pay for such personal items as pornography and horse manure. So while we may still have a few things to learn from those on the other side of the Atlantic when it comes to avoiding confrontation with Islamic terrorists and accommodating those who prefer Sharia law to the law of the land, their public servants have clearly been influenced by our own rapacious politicians.

I keep hearing comedians and late night talk show hosts insist that the reason they don’t take pot shots at Obama isn’t because they, like the rest of the MSM, are in the tank for this guy, but because he’s so smart, so well-spoken and so doggone wonderful, that there’s simply nothing funny to be said about him. Well, I’m certainly not one to question high-paid professionals, but I would think there might be a little fun to be had at the expense of a fellow who said that America has 57 states; who inherited Bing Crosby’s ears; who can’t say “Hello” without using a TelePrompter; who lied about having bowed to a Saudi king (“Are you going to believe me or your own lying eyes?”); who hand-picked a man he trusted to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, a nincompoop whom he has since turned into the butt of his every joke; and, for good measure, is living under the same roof as that longtime comedy staple, the mother-in-law.

Those on the left are always telling us how smart they are. It all began during FDR’s first administration when every left-wing kook who ever gave him a piece of advice or lit his cigarette or kissed his fanny was called a member of Roosevelt’s brain trust. These days, those who would refer to themselves that way would include the likes of Chris Matthews, Janeane Garofalo, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, Janet Napolitano, Harry Reid, Wanda Sykes, Chris Dodd, Rahm Emanual, Bill Maher, Barney Frank, Sean Penn, Patrick Leahy, Hillary Clinton and now, no doubt, Arlen Specter. The irony is that the members of this particular brain trust have no brains and can’t be trusted.

Speaking of Ms. Garofalo reminds me that every time I see her on TV, I’m reminded that in the old days, when Jewish parents took their children to be photographed by a professional, the photographer would often supply a pair of eyeglasses. That’s because Jewish parents placed a premium on scholarship, and it was thought that, with glasses, the kid, who might be dumb as a doorknob, would at least look like a young Spinoza.

So it is that Ms. Garofalo is the only actress I know who doesn’t wear contacts. For all I know, she may have 20/20 vision, but she desperately wants to be taken seriously and therefore goes for the intellectual look with her black-framed specs. Sadly, the disguise is wasted because once she opens her yap, she might as well be wearing mittens, a large red nose and great big floppy shoes.

Calling Off the Boston Tea Party
by Burt Prelutsky

I’m sure that most of us have heard the inspiring story of the Boston Tea Party. At least when I was in school, they were still relating the tale of a handful of American patriots, including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, who, weary of taxation without representation, dumped large amounts of English tea into Boston Harbor. Well, if I could include time travel among my many talents, I just might go back to 1773 and try to persuade them to reconsider. “Boys,” I’d say to them, “I understand your frustration. But you have no idea what this is going to lead to down the road. I know that King George is as crazy as a loon, but a couple of hundred years from now, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren are going to have to answer to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Compared to them, King George looks as wise as King Solomon and as congenial as Ben Franklin.”

I mean, when you start adding up what it costs the typical taxpayer to keep councilmen, aldermen, mayors, assemblymen, state senators, governors, congressmen, U.S. senators and the president — not to mention their legions of secretaries, assistants, consultants, pollsters and assorted mistresses — clothed, housed, fed and pensioned, the colonists were getting off dirt cheap. I’d gladly pay a few extra cents for a cup of tea if it meant that these thousands of freeloaders would be forced to leave their cushy fiefdoms and go find honest work.

The bottom line is that taxation without representation is bad, but taxation with representation is worse.

Speaking of politicians, in a letter to the editor, a reader of the New York Times grumbled: “It’s amazing that Andrew Cuomo, who owes his whole career to his dad, may not get the Senate seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton (who owes her whole career to her husband) because David Paterson (who owes his whole career to his dad) may give it to Caroline Kennedy (who owes her whole career to her dad). You would think a state as large as New York could find someone who deserves something on his or her own.”

This merely points out how far America has come in recreating a monarchy of our own. But instead of our kings and queens relying on the European rule of progenitor to inherit their crowns, they have chosen to adopt the Hollywood version, better known as nepotism.

As I sit here, nobody is certain who is going to be the senator from Minnesota. That hasn’t prevented Al Franken from claiming victory with a margin of 225 votes, in spite of the fact that in at least 25 precincts, there were more ballots than voters!

I am of course hoping that Norm Coleman manages to convince the court that it would be embarrassing, to say the least, to have an election decided by ballots miraculously turning up in car trunks and cellars cast by voters whose last known address was the cemetery. At the very least, Chicago would likely sue over copyright infringement.

On the other hand, there’s that devilish little rascal lurking inside me that would like to imagine those other Democratic senators having to put up with the surly, ignorant, arrogant, ill-tempered, unfunny Sen. Franken for the next six years.

Mixing It Up With Left-Wingers
by Burt Prelutsky

Whenever I refer to liberals in print as pinheads, chowderheads, morons and flakes, I can always count on angry responses. Invariably, they will accuse me of stooping to insult them, instead of dealing with specific issues.

The fact is, I am always dealing with issues, be it the left’s adoration of the U.N.; their cockeyed belief in man-made global warming; their constant attacks on the first two amendments; their intolerance of Christian traditions and symbols, which, by the way, relies entirely on an intentional misreading of the Constitution, a document which does not and never has contained the words “separation of church and state”; their contempt for the U.S. military; the alleged supremacy of gay, Islamic and illegal alien, rights; their opposition to capital punishment; their support of judges who legislate from the bench; and their affinity for professors and journalists who feel their duty is to indoctrinate rather than educate or report.

It’s only in the context of taking liberals to task that I ever make my ad hominem attacks. And please believe me, when I call them pinheads, lamebrains and ignoramuses, I honestly believe I am being kind and letting them off far easier than they deserve. Would they really prefer traitors, Quislings and Communists? If so, I’d be only too happy to oblige.

The truth is, it’s left-wingers who make a practice of evading the issues. For instance, I have yet to have anyone on the left enumerate the rights he lost because of the Patriot Act. I have yet to have any of them explain how it is that we invaded Iraq for oil but failed to confiscate even a single drop. Also, I have never had a liberal name all those countries that hate America because of George Bush. Even when I offer to help them get started by suggesting Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, North Korea and Cuba, they refuse to engage.

I have also never had a leftist explain his love affair with socialism and communism, forms of tyranny which have led to unparalleled human misery wherever they have been introduced. But, then, what sort of freedom lovers side with the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel and make cultural icons of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara?

Silence is the same response I get when I have asked liberals, who allegedly favor honest elections, why they have never spoken out against ACORN, and why, although they pay lip service to free speech, people like David Horowitz and Ann Coulter require bodyguards when they appear on college campuses. And why is it that liberals, who already control newspapers, magazines and TV, are pushing for the “Fairness” Doctrine in a blatant, fascistic, attempt to keep conservative voices off the radio?

What sort of people are they who will defend the rights of pornographers and pedophiles to promote themselves in the public marketplace, but feel entitled to banish the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller, Kevin James, Sean Hannity, Lee Rodgers, Michael Reagan, Larry Elder and Bill O’Reilly, from the marketplace of ideas?

If I had to describe liberals in a single word it would probably be “feminine.” In most cases, I wouldn’t regard that word as a pejorative. In its best sense, it conveys sensitivity and an emphasis on the emotional. As it relates to liberals, it simply means that feelings trump everything else. So it is that liberals love the idea of the U.N., excited by the notion of a lot of nations sitting down and talking out their problems, as if to a marriage counselor. Unfortunately, when dealing with evil nations with evil intentions, the U.N. is nothing better than a bad joke. Partly that’s because it is inept and partly because it’s as weak as its weakest link and, for good measure, is as corrupt as Chicago politics.

Liberals are in favor of open borders because they feel sorry for those people sneaking across. It doesn’t occur to liberals that American citizens suffer from the influx of millions of impoverished illiterates. They are not concerned with the drain on schools, hospitals, jobs and prisons, because what’s important for liberals is that they feel good about themselves. It’s a unique type of selfishness because it’s disguised as an altruistic concern for others. It’s the same reason they oppose capital punishment. They don’t care about the victims or their loved ones. Any schmuck, after all, can sympathize with innocent people. But it takes a very special kind of individual to hold a candlelight vigil for a monster who had raped and murdered a child. A very special kind, indeed.

Recently, the voters in California voted against legitimizing homosexual marriages. The first thing that happened after the election is that our governor, the ex-actor whose biggest muscle is located between his ears, said that he hoped the courts would overrule the electorate. It’s not an idle wish. California’s voters have become accustomed to having their votes ignored. The second thing that took place was that large numbers of homosexuals went on a rampage, like the spoiled adolescents they so often tend to be.

The third thing that occurred is that L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors took the matter under advisement. Because I happened to be acquainted with one of the five supervisors, I sent him the following e-mail. (His name has been changed for our purposes.) “Dear George: I trust you won’t be party to overturning Proposition 8. It’s time that the people got to have their way at least once. By the way, are you still playing poker?”

He replied: “Burt: Thanks for your e-mail. The Board of Supervisors has joined with a number of others in challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 based on the equal protection provisions of the State constitution. This is an issue that affects the County because we issue marriage licenses. You and I appear to disagree on this, but the constitutionality issue has to be resolved. I hope all is well with you. I have not played poker in quite some time, and given the economy, I couldn’t afford to play anyway.”

I replied: “Don’t fall for that B.S., George. The homosexuals have equal protection and equal rights. They can all marry members of the opposite sex. What they are demanding, as usual, is to prove that George Orwell might have had California in mind, as well as the Soviet Union, when he wrote about the farm where all animals were equal, but some were more equal than others. It appears that you folks want things resolved once again by overriding the will of the majority. Californians have voted against same-sex marriages, in favor of capital punishment and against benefits for illegal aliens, and each time the liberals have found an obliging judge who happily disenfranchised the electorate. It won’t take too much more of this before people begin to regard voting as a futile exercise and will view the courts with utter contempt. On top of that, at this point, it would appear that you people are simply caving in to mob rule, inasmuch as the punks are expressing their pique by vandalizing churches and intimidating businesses and individuals. This is no time to support the barbarians. As for poker, you could afford to play if you won.”

It’s been a week now and I haven’t heard back.

An L.A. County supervisor, by the way, makes $178,789 a year. I have to assume they will soon be giving themselves a pay raise based on the cost of living and playing poker.