Perhaps it was all the hoopla about the historic nature of Barack Obama’s presidency. Maybe the hype of election night and all that talk about wishing our first black president well actually made us all believe, for just a fleeting moment in time, that things would not be as bad as we feared they would be. It turns out they are worse.

After the president’s first press conference, it was clear that he is completely in over his head. His long, rambling answers to the questions directed to him went from tedious to boring and finally to embarrassing. The man really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Iran’s attitude has been “unhelpful” in the search for peace in the Middle East? What kind of analysis is that? They threaten to wipe Israel off the map every chance they get! Unhelpful?

Then there is the bloated, pork-laden, so-called stimulus package the geniuses in Congress have devised to fulfill their leader’s vision of how to “fix” the economy. Having failed to garner a single GOP vote for this boondoggle in the House, Obama worked very hard to wine and dine and charm the three most liberal RINOs in the Senate (Collins, Snowe and Specter) to vote for it. Like the emperor sporting his nonexistent new clothes, Obama can now claim minimal bipartisan support for this unconstitutional transfer of wealth.

Most Americans (especially those who voted for him) are reluctant to turn on their new president just yet. It’s like an increasingly intense case of buyer’s remorse. You loved the product on the store shelf. So how can you feel this nagging desire to return it? And just when you think you made a terrible mistake, you have this sickening realization that all sales are final.

As for the “stimulus” bill itself, there is a sense that the president and his Democrat Congress want to ram it down our throats before anyone can sift through the bill’s laundry list of liberal fantasies and hold it up to the ridicule it so richly deserves.

But aside from the waste, the pork and the needless spending provisions of the bill, there are aspects of this legislation that make it dangerous. In a Bloomberg News commentary, Betsy McCaughey writes:

“Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion…Senators should read these provisions and vote against them…The bill’s health rules will affect ‘every individual in the United States.’”

McCaughey reports that the bill calls for all medical treatments to be tracked electronically by a new federal bureaucracy known as the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, which will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is administering what the federal government considers appropriate and cost effective health care. All this is the brain child of former Senator and disgraced tax cheat Tom Daschle, who recently had to withdraw his name from nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The goal, writes McCaughey, is “to reduce costs and guide your doctor’s decisions. These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, ‘Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.’ According to Daschle, doctors have to learn to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’”

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user is not defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time.”

Daschle says health care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors, he says, should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. And you thought the government wouldn’t ration your health care.

These provisions, combined with the unprecedented spending of this bill, prove once more that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are destined to repeat them. As we used to say in the days of fighting Hillary Care, if those on the Left ever realize their dream of universal health care, we will finally have a bureaucracy with the efficiency of the Post Office, the frugality of the Pentagon and the compassion of the IRS.

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© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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Dear Mr. President:

Recently, you stated that: “There will be a time for profits…Now is not that time.” Not since you made Joe the most famous plumber in America by telling him (and all of us) that you wanted to “spread the wealth around” have you been so transparent about your attitude toward the private sector.

You complain about “excessive” CEO salaries and bonuses. And I must admit that it strains credulity to imagine the chutzpah it takes for some of these companies to engage in such indulgences with both hands outstretched to the federal government for bailout dollars in numbers most of us can’t even comprehend. It is unseemly at best to watch these jackals presiding over companies that are hemorrhaging buckets of red ink while they fly off into the sunset in their corporate jets with their golden parachutes — paid for by American taxpayers.

Unfortunately, the same rules don’t seem to apply to you and your cohorts in government. You have an equally arrogant, cavalier attitude toward the hard-working Americans who pay for your salary and your extravagant lifestyle. And you don’t seem to play by the rules you create for the rest of us. Your new treasury secretary cheated on his taxes and yet was confirmed to oversee the Internal Revenue Service. Your nominee to run the health and human services department is the poster boy for limousine liberals who don’t even pay for their limousines — or at least not the taxes they owe on them. And your attorney general believes in pardons for terrorists and tax cheats.

Meanwhile, you and your Democrat Congress act as though the revenue you are using for your pork-laden bailouts and so-called stimulus packages just grew on the money tree in the back yard at the White House and is yours to do with as you see fit. Well, let me remind you of something, Mr. President: that money you are doling out is money my great-grandchildren haven’t even earned yet. It is tax revenue your successor five presidents down the line will have to steal from them in order to pay for this madness.

The saddest thing about this whole scenario, Mr. President, is that you are killing the one entity in our society that is actually creating jobs. Any high school Economics 101 teacher can tell you that in good economic times, 75 percent of new jobs in this country are created by small, independently-owned businesses. In times like these, when corporate America is slashing workforces like mad, that number is 100 percent!

And yet who gets the bailouts? Joe the Plumber or Sam’s Handyman Service, who eek out a living trying to find enough work to keep themselves and one or two employees afloat? No, it’s Citibank and the bloated auto industry. We’re told that they are “too big to fail.”

Well, let me tell you something, Mr. President. Granted, it would be a pretty big ripple through the economy if General Motors went under. But if you put every small entrepreneur in this country out of business, our economy, as we know it, will be gone.

Mr. President, small business owners are being crushed by a largely hysteria-created recession. Their credit has been cut off because of the irresponsible behavior of Members of Congress and the greed of some on Wall Street. These entrepreneurs aren’t asking for a bailout. They just want you and your bloated, obstructionist government to get out of their way!

Not the time for profits, indeed! With all due respect, this is precisely the time when businesses need profits.

But then, the ignorant souls who voted for you — many of whom don’t even pay taxes — have so wrapped yourselves in victim status and class envy that they are cheering you on as their new Fairness Czar; so I guess I don’t expect you to listen to me. I won’t have a real say in the matter again until the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November 2012. See you then.

Respectfully,

Doug Patton
An American taxpayer

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© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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A middle school vice principal told me last week that he could see the thrill and the pride in the faces of his black students as they watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. He seemed to think this was a good thing. When asked why a Clarence Thomas or a Bill Cosby were not role models to them, he said that these young people saw Obama in a way they could never see Thomas or Cosby.

“I can’t explain it,” he told me, “but they just don’t consider such people to be ‘one of them.’ There is a feeling among them that ‘Barack’s got my back.’”

It made me sad for the future of America. It reminded me of the giddy young black woman on election night who became known as “Peggy the Mooch.” Remember her? She was caught on camera saying, “Now I don’t have to worry about payin’ my mortgage or puttin’ gas in my car, ‘cause I helped Barack and now he’s gonna help me.”

At this point it is hard to know the cure, but the symptoms of the disease are everywhere. Our public education system has failed to teach our children the basics of how and why this nation was formed. In fact, it has spent so much time teaching them politically correct but inaccurate information that we now have a generation that knows what to think but not how to think. Consequently, we now have the most ignorant electorate in the history of American elections.

Then there is the media, which has sold its soul to elect Barack Obama president. How else could a rookie backbencher in the Illinois State Legislature springboard to the presidency in four years time?

Ronald Reagan’s warning about losing our freedoms echoes down through a generation of lost momentum and squandered opportunity. He handed our generation a chance to hold onto that precious liberty at a time when our spirits were down, our interest rates, inflation and unemployment all were up, and we had a Democrat president overcome by malaise.

The Gipper reminded us of who we were as a people and why we were the greatest country in the history of the world: freedom. He gave us the encouragement we needed to jumpstart a sluggish economy and to bring the United States back to world class status again. He used the heavy hand of government in foreign affairs, but not as an intrusion in our domestic life. Here at home, he got government out of our way. As he said in his first inaugural as president in 1981, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

Now we stand at the precipice, ready to plunge headlong into the same socialist abyss that has swallowed so much of the world. No one can seriously believe that Barack Obama’s plans for this economy are going to succeed. And meanwhile, his radical beliefs with regard to national security, the sanctity of life and traditional marriage threaten what is left of our moral fiber.

Barack Obama is not a good role model for the impressionable young blacks who idolize him so. He is not someone who attained his office based on the premise of Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream that one day we would all be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. His meteoric rise to the pinnacle of power is due entirely to his rhetorical skills, his attractive smile and the color of his skin. He has accomplished nothing that justifies the position he now holds, and his naivety concerning America fills me with sorrow for the future we all surely will share.

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© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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Last September, after meeting with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernacke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson concerning the “need” for the $700 billion bailout, President Bush reportedly remarked to a White House aide, “I am not going to be another Herbert Hoover.”

In making such a statement, Bush displayed a common misunderstanding about our 31st president. According to popular myth, President Herbert Hoover was a do-nothing president who simply allowed the greed of Wall Street to run roughshod over the nation until the country was plunged into a great depression.

The truth is something else entirely. As Amity Schlaes points out in her brilliant book, “The Forgotten Man, A New History of the Great Depression,” Herbert Hoover paved the way for Franklin Roosevelt’s socialist New Deal, not by doing nothing, but rather by doing the wrong things. Hoover was far from the hands-off, laize fare chief executive whose failure to use government power resulted in “Hoovervilles” of Americans living in squalor with 25 percent unemployment. In fact, it was his use of government power that created these problems.

Herbert Hoover had been an up-and-coming Democrat when he changed parties to support Warren G. Harding’s bid for the GOP nomination in 1920.

The first president born west of the Mississippi River (in West Branch, Iowa), Hoover was a mining engineer by trade. He had been Harding’s Commerce Secretary, yet found himself distained by Harding’s vice president, the reserved Calvin Coolidge.

Coolidge called Hoover “Wonder Boy,” but kept him on at Commerce after Harding died in office. When Coolidge chose not to run for another term in 1928, the popular Hoover easily captured the Republican nomination and the presidency in a landslide, despite never having held elective office before.

Herbert Hoover, like George W. Bush, was a believer in big government. Both men created new government programs and departments, with spending to match. Both believed that only government had the resources to make right the economic woes of the nation. And both paved the way for their successors to implement even more government intrusion into the private sector.

In Hoover’s case, he did two things that were disastrous for the country. He raised taxes and signed the Smoot-Hawley Act, which placed a protectionist wall of tariffs on our foreign trading partners. This paved the way for FDR to claim that more needed to be done — much more. Roosevelt blamed Hoover and the greedy, idle rich whom he said were not paying “their fair share.” Sound familiar?

With Bush, it was a massive new Medicare prescription drug entitlement program and a $700 billion dollar bailout package that socialized the financial sector of the American economy, thus setting the stage for Barack Obama to enter the scene with some of the wildest, most grandiose schemes ever witnessed in Washington, DC.

I talked to an average, blue collar small business owner last week. This man will retire from his business within the next year. He told me he was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. I asked him why? His answer should not have surprised me, but it did.

“The only Republican worth voting for in my lifetime was Ronald Reagan,” he said.

That man reflects the essence of the 1984 presidential election, when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in the biggest rout in the history of presidential politics. His statement about Reagan is a statement about the condition of politics in this country. When given the choice to vote liberal or conservative, the American people will vote conservative. When given the choice to vote liberal or liberal-lite, they will choose the real thing every time.

Generally, young voters are “branded” with the emotion of the first vote they cast for president. The generation the elected Franklin D. Roosevelt four times became Democrats for the rest of their lives.

Many who came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s supported Ronald Reagan and became lifelong Republicans, thereby propelling GOP candidates into the White House in five of the last eight elections.

But last year’s presidential election probably has placed liberal Democrats in the majority for a generation. Barack Obama is a skilled communicator who will not be easily removed from office. Like FDR before him, he is already saying that the problems created by his predecessor will take “years” to “fix.” 

© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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On that awful evening of September 11, 2001, my gaze alternating between my television screen and my computer screen, I wrote a column called “Now We Know How Israel Feels.” In that piece, I retold the true story of Ken Rex McElroy of Skidmore, Missouri, a local bully who terrorized an entire rural county until, after years of abuse, theft, rape and attempted murder, a handful of Skidmore citizens shot him to death on Main Street in broad daylight. Recently, like those citizens in Skidmore, the nation of Israel had had enough.
 
Imagine that Canada, Mexico and most of Central America are run by fascist dictators whose sworn goal is the annihilation of the United States. Picture Canada as a leading sponsor of terrorism, as the primary supporter of a terrorist organization operating out of Mexico, and as a rogue state developing nuclear weapons in defiance of the entire civilized world. Further imagine that this terrorist group also is supported by Cuba (which may have weapons of mass destruction smuggled in from another country). In our little scenario, this nasty terrorist group has begun firing missiles from Tijuana into downtown San Diego.

Now imagine that the United States is the size of Rhode Island and you have a more personal picture of how the Israelis must feel right now.

The modern state of Israel has understood since its inception in 1948 that brute force is the only way to deal with a bully. Knock him down and make sure he doesn’t get up again, because it is the only thing he understands or respects. After 9/11, most clear-thinking Americans understood that concept, too.

Hamas has a long and bloody history of murder against the Jewish people, and Americans need to be reminded that, like most of the Islamic governments in the Middle East, this vicious terrorist organization has vowed to destroy the state of Israel.

Now, after years of forced appeasement, Israel is faced with a choice: submit to annihilation or crush its foes once and for all. The lessons of the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon have not been lost on the Israeli leadership. The choice in that conflict to avoid the use of ground troops led to a public relations disaster as Hezbollah showed the world photo after bloody photo of innocent bystanders hit by Israeli rockets and bombs. No one seemed to notice that Hezbollah was firing rockets from residential Lebanese neighborhoods, just as Hamas is doing now.

The fact that a majority of Palestinians were stupid enough to vote Hamas into power to represent them does not mitigate the fact that it is a terrorist organization, and Israel should stop trying to negotiate with them. As surely as al Qaeda, Hezbollah and any other terrorist group must be destroyed, so must Hamas.

After decades of pushing the Israelis to surrender territory and make peace with those who have sworn to destroy them, the world is now witnessing the results of that appeasement. Islamic extremists, who view compromise as weakness, have been emboldened by Israel’s actions in recent years. Now, as is always the case when dealing with bullies, the time has come for Israel to respond to an imminent threat to their security. The Israelis should continue to attack until Hamas is destroyed, then turn their attention to Iran, the primary sponsor of this terrorist organization and a potential nuclear threat in the region.

No free nation can appease its avowed enemies, nor reason with terrorist fanatics. There is no possible negotiation with them. Like Ken McElroy of Skidmore, Missouri, they must be shot to death on Main Street in broad daylight.
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© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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I love Christmas movies. Two of my favorites are “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” (I, too, always wanted a Red Rider BB gun as a kid). But two years ago a new “classic” was added to my must-see list at Christmastime.

I remember when my wife and I first saw “The Nativity Story,” a simple, true-to-the-gospels retelling of the most familiar story in Christianity. As we walked into our local multiplex, past the throngs of moviegoers in line for the opening of the latest fantasy action flick of the week, I couldn’t help but smile. As we made our way into the half-empty theater, showing the film that tells the story every human being desperately needs to see and hear, I thought to myself, “Isn’t this the way it has always been?”

I thought of the week Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died. It was as though the media was annoyed that in the middle of the most important story of the decade, the quiet passing of the gentle nun of Calcutta was an afterthought they had to cover. The attention paid to the violent death of the beautiful young princess in a Paris tunnel contrasted so stunningly with the coverage paid to the passing of one of the 20th Century’s towering spiritual role models that I remember thinking, “This is just like God to take her at this time.”

“The Nativity Story” reminds us again of the irony inherent in the fact that God chose the humblest of settings to bring the Savior of all humanity into this world. Even King Herod’s men did not think to look in a stable for the king of the world, and for two thousand years we have looked for something more. Something flashier. Something more glorious. Something greater. For those of us who passionately believe in the truth of this story, it was a clear reminder of why our faith is more than just a belief to be followed by the letter of the law. It is a life to be lived in the Spirit of the living God. What could be greater than that?

Therein is the difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world. Virtually every other faith speaks of Jesus Christ as a wise prophet, a great teacher, a good man. But scripture tells us that Christ is “the way, the truth and the life.” Other religions are willing to acknowledge that following Jesus is one of the ways to heaven. Christ says he is the only way to heaven. No wonder he was crucified.

Christianity also is unique in that it proclaims that its central figure is still alive. Hindus think their leaders have been reincarnated. Buddha and his followers are thought to be part of some vast cosmos of energy. Mohammed, fiercely and violently defended though he may be, is still dead. Even the body of Moses has long ago turned to dust. Jesus Christ alone is believed by his followers to be physically alive — even after having faced the worst death imaginable.

Far too many in our society reject the simple gospel presented by Christ and his disciples in favor of alternative religions that teach vague notions of piety through good works. Discontented seekers of new age solutions to age-old problems need only look to the truth of the nativity story.

This week as we celebrate the miracle of a baby whose life was given as a gift of sacrifice for all humanity, we also should remember that he is still with us. Like Christmas itself, the reality of Christ persists and grows stronger. He was born, lived, died, rose again, ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of his Father to make intercession for us, and sent his Holy Spirit to live within us. What a story. To hundreds of millions of us, it is still the only one that makes sense.
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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This is a tale of two American churches. One is in a major city. The other is in a small town. One preaches hatred of America and its institutions. The other preaches love and patriotism. One is infected with a toxic dogma known as Black Liberation Theology. The other espouses the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One was just firebombed. Guess which one.

Barack Obama spent twenty years sitting in the pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, listening to some of the foulest teaching ever to come from the mouth of a “preacher.” That preacher was a poison-tongued demagogue named Jeremiah Wright, who has spewed racist lies and hateful conspiracies from his pulpit during his entire career.

Meanwhile, in Wasilla, Alaska, an evangelical church, attended by Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, teaches the true meaning of Christ’s message to His church and to a fallen world.

On Friday, Dec. 12, the Wasilla Bible Church was firebombed. Authorities said the fire started at the main entrance of the church and that they are investigating the blaze as arson. They estimated the damage at $1 million. No one was injured, although a small group, which included children, was inside at the time.

The Wasilla congregation gathered for their services at a local middle school the Sunday following the fire. The statements of the members and their pastors, as reported by the Associated Press, are telling:

Patsy Inks said the news initially shocked and frustrated her. But by Sunday, she was feeling blessed, she said at the school, where worshippers lingered over a potluck dinner for a church family leaving Alaska. “This tragedy has brought us all together,” Inks said, her eyes tearing up.

The congregation realizes the church is more than the building, said John Doak, associate pastor at Wasilla Bible Church. “The definition of the church is the body of Christ, made up of God’s people,” Doak said. “The church is still there. We are the church.”

Gov. Palin, who was not at the church at the time of the fire, stopped by Saturday. She reportedly told an assistant pastor she was sorry if the fire was connected to the “undeserved negative attention” the church has received since she became the vice presidential candidate on Aug. 29.

According to AP, worshippers acknowledged the possible Palin connection with the fire, but more in a “gee, maybe” sort of way, said Rob Tracy, a member of the church. But people are speculating about other motives.

“It’s just as likely to be some troubled person who has a beef with God,” Tracy said.

“Or some local punks,” Doak said.
The AP seemed to offer a different motive for the attack:

“After Palin was named John McCain’s running mate, the evangelical church was the subject of intense scrutiny. Early in her campaign, Palin’s church was criticized for promoting in a Sunday bulletin a Focus on the Family ‘Love Won Out’ conference in Anchorage. The conference promised to ‘help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome.’”

So let me see if I have this straight. The media fell all over itself during the Obama campaign avoiding an in-depth look at the vitriol flowing like a river of vomit out of Wright’s Chicago church. Yet, when Sarah Palin was named as John McCain’s choice for vice president, every major news outlet in the country put reporters on planes to Alaska to “investigate” this woman’s strange church. And now that this same church has been burned — an act that would surely be hailed as a “hate crime” had it happened at Obama’s church — we are told that a ministry to help homosexuals who want to leave their deviant lifestyle may be the reason for the attack.

Meanwhile, the loving, forgiving members of the Wasilla Bible Church are turning the other cheek after their church has just been burned to the ground. Can you imagine Jeremiah Wright and his ilk having such a reaction had it been the Trinity United Church of Christ that was attacked?
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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In the inmates-are-running-the-asylum department, too many cases are popping up to ignore them. Here are a few modest examples:

At the state capitol in Olympia, Washington, Gov. Christine Gregoire (a Democrat, of course), has approved the placement of an atheist sign for public display next to a nativity scene. The sign reads: “At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds. Placed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of its Washington State Members.”

Tell that “hardens hearts” nonsense to the millions of Christian believers who have been martyred down through history at the hand of atheist monsters like Stalin and Mao. Personally, I wish I could get a little freedom from the unbelievers who have so totally screwed up life in America.

In an unrelated Christmas story from the Netherlands, a gay group in Amsterdam has organized a “Pink Christmas” festival featuring a nativity scene with two Josephs and two Marys. The rationale for this bizarre display is “to increase the range of options for homosexual men and women during the Christmas holiday week” and to “encourage people to think about homosexuality and religion.” Just what I want to think about at Christmastime.

In Bloomington, Indiana, an undercover pro-life college student told a Planned Parenthood “nurse” that she was 13 and had been impregnated by a 31-year-old man. The nurse told the girl not to disclose her age or the age of the man. She then encouraged the girl to lie and say that the “boy” in question was 14. Apparently, local police, although they have been notified of the statutory rape implications in this case, have chosen to do nothing to investigate Planned Parenthood. They did, however, post extra security around the clinic in case of a “pro-life backlash.”

In Great Britain (which is no longer so great), Muslims have so cowed the government that public schools have stopped teaching about the Holocaust. It seems that a significant percentage of the Islamic population in the U.K. (which is growing by frightening quantities) believes the same fairy tale espoused by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — namely that the holocaust never happened.

Also in England, the popularity of chaste pop idols like the Jonas Brothers has not been exalted. In fact, girls caught wearing “purity rings,” signifying that they wanted to remain virgins until marriage, were forced to remove them. Apparently, the authorities didn’t want the slutty girls to feel ostracized.

In Congress, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), after having violated about half of the federal tax laws, is staying on as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, the king and queen of congressional oversight of the banking industry, are still in charge of running their respective asylums. Frank, whose boyfriend ran a prostitution ring out of the congressman’s townhouse back in 1990, and who more recently was involved in a homosexual affair with an official of Fannie Mae, one of the bankrupt quasi-governmental entities Frank oversees as head of the House Financial Services Committee, sees no conflict between his public and personal life. Pay no attention to that little gay man behind the curtain.

Speaking of Congress, the heads of the so-called Big 3 auto manufacturers were summoned to Capitol Hill for a little public flogging before handing them their bailout money. Of course, they had to be humiliated further for daring to fly in to Washington on their corporate jets (an admittedly stupid PR move when begging for billions in public alms). The great irony here is that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has a jet available to her at all times as well. Not to worry, though, because the auto makers have been so cowed that they drove to DC in their own “green” vehicles the next time they came calling with their hands out.

It’s like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” meets “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Except that Mr. Smith is in a straight jacket in a rubber room while the loons run the asylum.

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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton

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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.

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During his tenure as President of the United States, George W. Bush has been stingier with his constitutional authority to grant pardons than any chief executive since World War II.

As of November 24, with just under two months left in office, out of the thousands of people pleading for pardons, the president had only found 171 worthy of his mercy.

But it is not the number of pardons that should concern the American people. It is who gets these pardons and who does not. Many presidents have been criticized for controversial pardons. Abraham Lincoln pardoned a man who had been convicted of attempted bestiality because he found the man’s character to be “otherwise reputable.”

Andrew Johnson made good on Lincoln’s desire that a pardon be granted to every soldier who fought for the confederacy.

In 1950, President Harry Truman commuted the sentence of Oscar Collazo from death to life in prison. Collazo had been convicted of trying to assassinate Truman. In 1979, after having served 29 years, Collazo was released from prison after President Jimmy Carter granted him a full pardon.

Richard Nixon pardoned Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa in exchange for an agreement not to “engage in direct or indirect management of any labor organization” for the next ten years.

Gerald Ford will always be known as the man who pardoned Richard Nixon a month after Nixon resigned in disgrace in August 1974. The pardon probably caused Ford to lose the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, but Ford believed that it was the only way for the nation to get past the Watergate scandal.

Carter, once in office, fulfilled a campaign promise to offer amnesty to anyone who had fled to Canada or elsewhere to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.

George H.W. Bush granted pardons to former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal, which had occurred during the Reagan administration when Bush was vice president.

Then, of course, there are the notorious, last-minute pardons issued by President Bill Clinton, perhaps the most infamous of which was that of Marc Rich, the millionaire financier who had fled the country after being indicted on 51 counts of tax fraud for which he owed $48 million in federal taxes.

For George W. Bush, the case of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean is a stench in the nostrils of every thinking American who loves justice.

One night in February 2005, Mexican drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila drove his van illegally across the border from Mexico to the United States carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. When confronted by Agents Ramos and Compean, Aldrete-Davila tried to flee back across the border. The agents, thinking they saw a weapon in the suspect’s hand, opened fire, hitting him in the buttocks. He continued to flee and managed to escape back into Mexico.

Federal prosecutors gave Aldrete-Davila blanket immunity to return to the U.S. and testify against the agents. Ramos and Compean were subsequently convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and violation of civil rights.

Ramos got 11 years in prison. Compean got 12 years.

California Congressman Dana Rohrbacher said the case was “the worst miscarriage of justice that I have witnessed in the 30 years I’ve been in Washington. The decision to give immunity to the drug dealer and to throw the book at the border patrol agents was a prosecutorial travesty.”

It also turns out that this low-life drug smuggler re-entered the United States at least 10 different times in 2005 and that he was caught smuggling drugs while he was waiting to testify against Ramos and Compean. These facts were not brought up at their trial.

I have praised George W. Bush for keeping this nation safe from another terrorist attack since 9/11, for his tax policies and for two solid nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. But I also have been critical of his weak immigration policies and for his profligate spending during his two terms in office, and I have been extremely disappointed in his willingness to give away the store in these ridiculous corporate bailouts. Overall, if I had to grade him as a president, I would give him a C-minus.

But I will lose my last ounce of respect for this man as my president if he does not pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean before he leaves office. These men put their lives on the line for us just as surely as our brave troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and justice demands a full presidential pardon.

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 Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.

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At the recent Republican Governors Conference in Florida, one superstar (Sarah Palin of Alaska) was center stage, while another (Arnold Schwarzenkennedy of Caleefornia) was conspicuous by his absence.

Fresh off her rollercoaster ride as the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Governor Palin gave a speech that was simultaneously humorous and serious, confident yet self-deprecating. Unshackled from the nitwits who ran the disorganized John McCain for President Campaign, she was relaxed and back in her element. She spoke of the states as a proving ground for the future leadership of the nation, and of the governors as the alternative to Washington’s visionless business-as-usual. She is truly a political rising star in the midst of several political rising stars.

Conspicuous by his absence was the governator, celebrity potentate of an increasingly ungovernable state that comprises most of the Left Coast. Apparently, he was too busy begging the federal government for a bailout of his state to bother attending the RGC. Either that or he was pouting because he is no longer the biggest fish in the shrinking pond of GOP governors.

Emboldened by the largesse of the feds in recent corporate bailouts, Arnold now says his state needs a five billion dollar infusion of cash in order to maintain that infamous profligate California lifestyle — at least for a while. Like the “Big Three” automakers, Schwarzenegger is in the process of trying to convince the nation that his state is “too big to fail.” He no doubt believes that after nearly a trillion dollars of handouts to corporate America, the country is ready to start bailing out the states — especially if it means avoiding increased taxes at the state level.

Ironically, Arnold seems to see no conflict in the fact that a few years ago (on his watch) California committed that exact same sum to the highly questionable field of embryonic stem cell research. Always compelled to live on the cutting edge of everything, the state committed to this funding to show how much more progressive it was than the federal government. (Kind of like legalizing “medical marijuana.”)

God forbid that the citizens of California should actually see their government exercise some fiscal restraint and cut spending. (Where is it written that governments always have to grow?)

Consider just a few of the other expenses incurred by the Golden State in the last few years, expenses that Schwarzenegger seems to have no stomach for cutting. California leads the nation in sanctuary cities, whereby the mayor and city council of a city give their official blessing to harboring criminal aliens. The poster boy for this nonsense is Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, whose city has become a “progressive” magnet for every deviant in the Western Hemisphere.

One of the dirty little secrets hidden in the nation’s mortgage crisis is the fact that five million of those bad loans were given to illegal aliens! How many of those loans were in California?
In many ways, it is unfair to compare the task of governing California and Alaska. While they are two of the largest states physically, the former is the most populous state, while the latter is the most sparsely populated. But the principles of responsible governance remain the same. For example, Sarah Palin has utilized the natural resources of Alaska for the benefit of the people of Alaska. Arnold Schwarzenegger has shackled the taxpayers of his state by embracing much of the silliness of the environmental movement: opposing offshore drilling; supporting the continuation of numerous designer grades of gasoline to conform to “clean air” standards, etc.

One other important difference between these two governors: Sarah Palin believes in the principles laid out in the Republican Party platform, including those that revere the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not.

She, not he, is the future of the GOP.
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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Barack Obama is the Hugo Chavez of American politics. He is radical beyond anything we have seen come out of the Democratic Party before. His Marxist ideas could do permanent damage to the people of this country. Far too many of us are already dependent on our government, so much so that when a crisis looms, that is where we turn for solutions to our problems.  

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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton

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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.

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If the elite media and their skewed polls are to be believed, Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. If that is the case, let us imagine for a moment what an Obama administration might look like if this radical leftist actually were to follow his heart and appoint people to his cabinet who share his view of the world. Here, then, are some highlights of some key members of Barack Obama’s possible dream cabinet (in alphabetical order).

Secretary of Agriculture — U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin would be the logical choice here. Harkin, a far-left Iowa Democrat who has served as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has never met an ag subsidy he didn’t love.

Attorney General — If Obama thought he could get away with it, he probably would place his wife, Michelle in this position, just as President John F. Kennedy did with his brother, Bobby. However, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of the Peoples’ Republic of Vermont would be equally vigilant on behalf of the rights of criminals and would therefore be a suitable second choice.

Secretary of Defense — How about U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who, while running for president himself, once proposed a “Department of Peace”? (What Dennis the Menace has never understood is that the funny-looking five-sided building across the Potomac is our department of peace.)

Secretary of Education — The obvious choice for this post is Professor William Ayers from the University of Illinois. This man is considered to be an expert in the field of education. He has written 17 books and is highly respected within the academic community. He is well known to Barack Obama, having served on at least two boards with him. He is also a self-proclaimed Marxist, anarchist and domestic terrorist who brags about having set off bombs at the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol building and at New York City police headquarters. He and Barack Obama share a desire to pollute young American minds with leftist propaganda.

Secretary of Energy — Perhaps President Obama could get former Vice President Al Gore to fill this important post. Gore could just shut down what’s left of our refineries and grind the nation to a halt. Of course, it’s going to be hard to blame that on the Republicans if they are not in power. Oh well, they’ll think of something.

Secretary of Health and Human Services — Is Jack Kevorkian still alive? Old Jack really would be perfect to carry out Obama’s creepy anti-life policies.

Secretary of Homeland Security —  As long as we have Bill Ayers in the cabinet, why not include his lovely wife, Bernadine Dohrn? Another domestic terrorist, Dohrn actually did prison time for her crimes.

Secretary of State — Without question, the state department is the most visible cabinet post in any administration, and no one personifies Barack Obama’s view of American foreign policy better than Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is widely known as a political dissident, anarchist and socialist intellectual. Beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War, Chomsky has established himself as a harsh critic of American foreign policy. He would be the perfect secretary of state to carry out Barack Obama’s feeble foreign policy initiatives.

Secretary of the Treasury — Although Obama has mentioned Warren Buffet as a potential treasury secretary, why go with George Soros light when you can have the real deal? Given the opportunity, why wouldn’t Obama offer the job to the crazy, Hungarian-born billionaire who has invested so much in getting him elected?

For White House Budget Director, Prez Obama might have a tough choice between two highly qualified members of the U.S. House of Representatives, namely Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank. Rangel, of course, is the black congressman from Harlem and current chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He once equated tax cuts with racism. His appointment would fill a race quota. Then there’s Frank, of Massachusetts, who was at the heart of the debacle with sub-prime mortgages that eventually brought down Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae. His presence in an Obama administration would fill a gay quota. (Appearances are everything to Dems, you know.)

Then there are the eventual Supreme Court appointments, but I can’t even allow myself to focus on any names beyond Hillary Clinton. Who knows? Obama might even get this motley crew approved by a Democrat Senate.  
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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Imagine that after his arrest, Timothy McVeigh had been released from custody because of misconduct by police and/or an overzealous prosecutor. Imagine that after his release, McVeigh had bragged about setting the bomb that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Now picture McVeigh spending the next decade amassing degrees from prestigious universities and procuring grants to dispense funds to extreme right-wing groups. Imagine that he had become a tenured professor at a major university and an expert on education issues — and that he wrote a book about his experiences as a terrorist.

On the cover of a magazine, he is photographed stomping on an American flag. In the interview within that magazine, he is quoted as saying, “Guilty as hell! Free as a bird! America is a great country!” He is also quoted as saying that he does not regret blowing up the Murrah Building; in fact, he says, he wishes he had done more. Perhaps an abortion clinic bombing. Perhaps another federal building. Perhaps the White House.

Now imagine clear evidence is found that McVeigh had been associated with John McCain on several levels. Perhaps they served on a board together. Maybe McCain had helped McVeigh dispense some of those funds to right wing groups. Everyone this side of the planet Neptune knows that this would be a topic of discussion in numerous front-page articles in The New York Times and on every media outlet in America — and rightly so.

But that aside, what do you think the chances would be that other universities around the country would invite Timothy McVeigh to come and lecture their students? Well, that is exactly what happened at the University of Nebraska, but the unrepentant terrorist turned college professor and education expert in question is not Timothy McVeigh. He is William Ayers, Marxist professor and friend of Barack Obama, and he was invited to Lincoln to speak at the university next month.

The university’s department of education is having a celebration marking one hundred years of service to the community and the state. Ayers was scheduled to speak on November 15. The invitation was extended to him in February of this year. The excuse given for this inexcusable invitation is that Ayers is an “expert in education issues” and that those extending it did not know about Ayers’ terrorist past. Right.

This man’s past as the founder of the Weather Underground, a 1970s offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — a past that included bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol and a New York City police headquarters building — has been known to everyone paying the slightest bit of attention for at least the last year. His association with Obama has been public knowledge since before the Democratic Primaries last winter and spring.

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, Attorney General Jon Bruning, University Regent Randy Furlic and even U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson were all highly critical of the decision to invite Ayers. Furlic, in an op-ed in the Omaha World-Herald, compared the Ayers invitation to inviting Osama bin Laden to discuss religion or Josef Mengele to speak on medical ethics.

NU Chancellor Harvey Pearlman seemed to have been caught off guard by the firestorm of criticism when the invitation was announced. Pearlman has a typical insular academic’s view of the world. He just doesn’t get it. In the end, he cancelled the invitation, citing security reasons. No one in Nebraska really buys that excuse, but at least Ayers will not be speaking here.

The entire firestorm over the invitation to Bill Ayers to speak at the University of Nebraska misses a very large point. From the time Bill Ayers plotted the bombing of the Pentagon, the Capitol and New York City police headquarters through his years as a student to his current status as an “education expert,” he has never changed his view of the world. Ayers is, at heart, a radical, America-hating terrorist who wants to destroy the Republic as we know it. He tried to destroy it in the 1970s by setting bombs. He failed. Now he wants to destroy it by poisoning the minds of American students and convincing them to hate their country as much as he does.
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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