Red, White and Liberal

by Alan Colmes

  Fighting Words

  Dick Cheney, one of the more hawkish voices in the push to go to war with Iraq, is on record as having said, "I had other priorities in the '60's than military service." Bill Clinton is still referred to as "a triple draft dodger" by my friend and political adversary Bob Dornan. In 1995, with presidential aspirations of his own, Congressman Dornan said, "Our young men and women around this country were killed in Somalia and are about to be killed in Bosnia by a triple draft dodger, an adulterer, a man whose background is financial corruption in Little Rock." Dick Cheney, meanwhile, the man whose priorities pointedly did not include defending his nation, received five—count 'em, five—deferments. And when the Selective Service expanded the draft to include married men without children, guess who got pregnant? The Cheneys' bundle of draft-resistant joy entered the world nine months and two days after that rule change. With that kind of timing, you have to give the man credit for knowing how to pull off a money shot.

  Joining hawk Cheney in finding ways to avoid serving in the military are the other major prowar members of the Bush 43 administration, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. If you did a word association test with them and said "Army," they'd respond with, "Oh, you mean the former congressman from Texas." And they wouldn't even have their spelling right.

  Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz spent the Vietnam years at the University of Chicago. Perle then joined the staff of Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, perhaps the last Democrat to back our incursion into Vietnam. But neither Perle nor Wolfowitz ever donned a U.S. military uniform. Unless they did so in a school play.

  One, then, has to wonder, how Donald Rumsfeld would regard Perle and Wolfowitz in his military caste system. According to our Defense secretary, if you fought in a war because you were drafted, your efforts were meaningless. Rumsfeld was commenting on a bill introduced by Congressman Charlie Rangel to bring back the draft. Rangel's true agenda was to make the point that if members of every socioeconomic class had an equal chance of being drafted, politicians would be less likely to send their own children off to war. A third of the military is composed of minorities, who make up approximately a quarter of the general population, so war puts minorities more at risk. Furthermore, when a legislator must think about whether a decision will personally affect his or her family, the process may have a different result. Rummy first said that under the draft there were too many exemptions. He went on to add, "what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

  Nice to know that the injuries sustained and lives lost by those who were drafted because they had no choice in the matter, by those who valiantly served our country, are so appreciated by our war minister. If this remark had been more widely circulated, it would have caused more pain to the families of those who have served and sacrificed.

  The War on Nonwhite Non-Christians

  "The 'War' on Terror" brought out some beauts. "We should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," wrote conservative pundit Ann Coulter. What a nice, clean three-step program. Ludicrous as this sounds, Bush 43 is already on steps one and two. Rich Lowry decided to stop publishing Coulter at the National Review Online for that outrageous piece of loveliness, prompting her to call him and his colleagues there "girly boys." Got a problem with estrogen? Coulter also wants to look at men with a color chart: "We should require passports to fly domestically. Passports can be forged, but they can also be checked with the home country in the case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males." Nice to know that only "swarthy males" can look suspicious. If you look like Tim McVeigh, perhaps you can blow up a building with impunity. Ms. Coulter also reminded us: "Congress could pass a law tomorrow requiring that all aliens from Arabic countries leave." Sure they could. They could also try to overturn the Bill of Rights, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that ended slavery. But, no thanks.

  And how about this Coulter Classic: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building," a remark she made to interviewer George Gurley in the August 23, 2002, New York Observer. Gee, I kind of regret that 168 people actually did die at the hands of Tim McVeigh. I guess, Ann, they're all liberals, so it's no big loss. Sadly, Ann is not alone in her view about who should be victimized by terrorists.

  Saxby Chambliss, the Republican who defeated incumbent Max Cleland for the Senate in Georgia by impugning his patriotism, remarked that officials in Valdosta, Georgia, should "just turn [the sheriff] loose and have him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line." What a nice thought. A religious exam for everyone entering the state. Or maybe we can just stop cars and search for copies of the Koran, followed by a book burning. But I do have to hand it to Saxby. This is much cheaper than invading their countries and killing their leaders. Leave it to good, conservative legislators to come up with money-saving devices.

  John Cooksey, a Louisiana congressman, gave an interview to a Louisiana radio network in which he said, "If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on his head and a fanbelt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked." In "the excuse is worse than the act itself department, Cooksey later claimed he was talking only about Osama bin Laden. So maybe we would have captured OBL right away had we just looked for the proper apparatuses on his head at traffic stops.

  North Carolina congresswoman Sue Myrick, in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in January 2003, said that we have domestic security threats and backed that up by adding, "Look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country." She said she didn't mean to offend anyone by this remark. How nice of her. But you have to ask what they're putting in slurpees in the Tarheel state. Her fellow North Carolina congressman, Howard Coble, went on a North Carolina radio station and said he agreed with Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of putting Japanese in internment camps during World War II. Finally, a Republican agrees with something FDR did, and look what it is. Coble seemed moderate compared with the caller to whom he was responding, who suggested that Arabs ought to be put in camps now. As Coble spoke, it only got worse. "Some probably were intent on doing harm to us," the congressman explained, "just as some of these Arab Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us." Coble went on to say that he was concerned about the safety of the Japanese, because they were not safe in the streets of America at a time of war. Maybe anyone who isn't with the majority opinion-wise ought to be put in prison for his or her own safety. Here's a fun little parlor game: every time you hear some negative comment about someone who is Arabian, French, or Muslim, for example, substitute the words Jewish, black, or conservative Christian, and see how it makes you feel.

  From: Victor

  Sent: Tuesday, February 04,2003 9:41 PM

  To: colmes

  Subject: LEFT-WING TRAIITORS

  Fox News:

  Be sure and keep the Jew Colmes on daily TV. It is a constant remainder, and maybe America will wake up to the Jewish syndrome, which always and consistently opposes anything that would benefit America and without question, sides with any enemy, at home or abroad. Colmes is no different than any other Jew. His hatred for this country is palpable. In any other country he would be beheaded. In this country we should castrate him so he can't propagate any more Jews.

  Better put me away, Mr. Ashcroft. My own safety depends on it.

  I Thought Conservatives Hated Political Correctness

  Shortly after September 11, Bill Maher said on Politically Incorrect, "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building—say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." This was the beginning of the end of his brilliant and groundbreaking television show. Even Rush Limbaugh defended Ma
her, questioning what it was Maher said that was incorrect. Politically incorrect? That it was, no doubt. And I'm not the first to observe that Maher was only living up to the name of his show.

  When White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked about press reports of Maher's comment, he said, "they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." Fleischer also said he didn't hear Maher's remarks firsthand, but that didn't stop him from warning Americans to "watch what they say." Pretty chilling when coming from the spokesmouth of the country's chief executive. Did Fleischer actually mean to suggest that the free speech rights of Americans should be curtailed? I don't think this was the case at all. But when these words come from the lips of the person whose words represent the policies and ideas of the president and his administration, a very false impression could be given about the level of respect the Bush 43 White House has for our Bill of Rights. This ought to be a reminder to all presidential spokespeople that "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

  It's Not Just Academic

  Some self-appointed guardians of our well-being took Ari Fleischer's words literally. Daniel Pipes founded campus-watch.org, whose mission statement says, "Campus Watch will henceforth monitor and gather information on professors who fan the flames of disinformation, incitement and ignorance." In other words, Pipes will keep an eye on academics he doesn't agree with. Pipes is a widely published author with a PhD in history from Harvard. His writings include a July 22, 1999, piece in the Los Angeles Times in which he suggests there are two kinds of Muslims in America, those who want to abide by our democratic institutions, and those who don't. He fears the latter group is prevailing, and that its goal is to "make the United States a Muslim country, perhaps along the Iranian or Sudanese models." In the National Review on October 22, 2001, he wrote, "every fundamentalist Muslim, no matter how peaceable in his own behavior, is part of a murderous movement and is thus, in some fashion, a foot soldier in the war that bin Laden has launched against civilization." And he doesn't have much respect for professors, either. He says on his website, "Academics seem generally to dislike their own country and think less of American allies abroad." Is that the kind of critical thinking we expect from a Harvard PhD? Unfortunately, Pipes has gone way beyond just thinking. On his website, he singles out at least fourteen professors for scrutiny. Other professors have spoken up about what they view as a Campus Un-American Activities Committee.

  Robert Jensen, a tenured professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote in the Houston Chronicle: "My anger on this day is directed not only at individuals who engineered the Sept. 11 tragedy but at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered attacks on civilians. . . . For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism." Thankfully, the president of UT-Austin, Larry R. Faulkner, defended not Jensen's words, but his right to say them.

  At Brown University, Professors William Keach, who teaches English, and John Tomasi, a political scientist, dismissed their students early on October 9, 2001, so students could attend a rally protesting our bombing of Afghanistan. They were bombarded with hate mail, many from parents demanding they be fired for, among other things, teaching "radical leftist reactionary propaganda," One angry response accused Tomasi of being anti-American because he was antiwar and opened that he should be tried and shot.

  Academic McCarthyism hit both the left and the right. Ken Hearlson, a political science professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, was falsely accused of calling four Muslim students "terrorists," "murderers," and "nazis." A transcript of his class one week after the terrorist attacks, provided to Hannity & Colmes by "The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education," reveals that Hearlson asked, "Why are everyday Muslims celebrating in the streets for the World Trade Center bombings and supporting Osama bin Laden?" Without a hearing, and simply on the word of four Muslim students (from a class where there were six other Muslims who knew the truth), Hearlson was placed on paid leave and barred from the Orange Coast campus. Hearlson was reinstated for the second semester in January 2001, but not without a letter of reprimand from his college president.

  Judith Butler, a professor who teaches gender theory at Berkeley, was among a hundred or so academics so outraged by Campus Watch's attempt to intimidate that she asked to be included on the list. This was a wonderful strategy and should be considered whenever someone decides to publish a "list" for public opprobrium. As Butler said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "If a group establishes a website and says, 'We are watching you,' that has a very chilling impact on academic freedom. The more people who actively volunteer themselves for such a list, the less that power of intimidation works."

  Do we want an atmosphere in America in which students hoping to graduate and professors hoping for tenure have to, in the words of Mr. Fleischer, "watch what (they) say"? And must the phrase "academic freedom" become an oxymoron? I pray not. And if you feel we need a "watch list" of peace-preaching academics, just what are you afraid of? Yes, they are going to rise up with their pens or, shall we say, keyboards, and challenge those wielding swords. It was the British cabinet member and novelist Sir Edward Bulyer-Lytton who told us which was mightier.

  Single-Issue Zealots Say the Darndest Things

  The two issues that elicit the most emotion are abortion and gun control, and many people vote solely on the basis of where a candidate stands on these issues. There is even a political party called the "Right to Life Party" that revolves around a sole issue. If you tell a single-issue abortion-focused person that you're against the death penalty, they will immediately point out that you're a hypocrite because you want to kill the unborn child. When these people ask me when life begins, I often reply, "At forty." As we've seen at abortion clinics in Massachusetts and Florida, and in the murder of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian, the most ardent antiabortion crazies can take the most extreme action if they think you are not "pro-life": they kill you.

  I have seen almost every topic imaginable linked to abortion by one-issue zealots, who can think of nothing else. Many of these monomaniacs are men who would be very happy to outlaw pregnancy if they had to experience it. And don't tell me I don't know what a pregnancy is like. I've had kidney stones. I am the proud parent of at least four grains of sand.

  From: maryjane

  Sent: Thursday, February 20,2003 9:34 AM

  To: colmes

  Subject: consistency

  Allen,

  ... How can the same liberals who protest against military action to remove a dangerous regime from Iraq with a murdurous reputation rush to the aid of mothers who want to kill their unborn children?... "Save the guilty of Iraq" and "Murder the innocent in the womb" just doesn't make sense. Even "Save the innocent of Iraq" and "Murder the innocent in the womb" is convoluted. But I'm sure the liberals in question will find a way to rationalize it.

  Maryjane

  Idaho Falls, ID

  So now war with Iraq is linked to abortion. Talk about the death penalty: they bring up abortion. Mention slavery: they tie it to the unborn fetus, enslaved in a womb. To once again quote my good friend, the brilliant linguist Barry Farber, this is "the running broad jump."

  "Good morning, Mr. Terry, it's a lovely day today isn't it?"

  "It's not a lovely day for the never-to-be born child."

  "Let's discuss forest fires."

  "You want to save the forests, but you don't care about the baby in the womb."

  "I believe in free speech."

  "Sure, you love the First Amendment, but you hate the Second Amendment."

  The Second Amendment, by the way, should be rewritten; no one knows what the hell it means. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of
the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Funny how those who support unlimited gun rights begin this Amendment thirty-one words in. If it's just "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" that shouldn't be infringed, what does "a well regulated Militia" have to do with it? Is it "A well regulated Militia" that should not be infringed? In that case, only militia members can bear arms which, in colonial times, meant only men of military age. Are they the only ones who can have guns? And if it's a free state that needs to be protected, does that mean that the guns should go to the professionals whose job it is to protect the state? Antiabortion activists advocate for the rights of the unborn, but just what rights should fetuses have? Freedom of speech? Assembly? Okay, I'll concede these. Fetuses should be allowed to speak, and the government shouldn't get in the way of fetal groups that wish to congregate. Yes, fetuses should have all the rights in the world, but once they're born, let's deny them proper health care, day care, properly paid teachers, a livable minimum wage, and while we're at it, let's privatize Social Security so the financial services industry can benefit from them while we remove government guarantees.

  I suspect it won't be long before the NRA and Operation Rescue get together to support fetal gun rights. I do see a fetal problem with the size of assault weapons, so there might have to be some controls on this. I mean, the womb is only so big. I've always wondered if some of the antigay whack jobs, like Reverend Fred Phelps (this is the "Reverend" who had the good taste to picket the Matthew Shephard funeral with "God Hates Fags" signs), would support abortion if they could isolate a gay gene and predict it prior to birth. And if we could accurately predict which babies would grow up to be liberals and run for office, don't you think at least some antiabortion believers would suddenly join the pro-choice camp?