Paging Charles Darwin

Paging Charles Darwin


Even though Bernie Goldberg has elected for perfectly rational reasons to stop posting my articles, we continue to exchange friendly email. I like Bernie and I think he’s a smart guy, but occasionally I think he goes out of his way to poke Evangelicals, possibly to appear fair and balanced when attacking Islamic jihadists.

Although Bernie is not a liberal, it is the sort of moral equivalence in which those on the Left are often engaged. It’s not unlike Obama’s comparing those who are lopping off heads and setting people on fire today to the Crusades, which took place a thousand years ago and were conducted in retaliation to Islamic barbarism.

Recently, after Scott Walker refused to answer an English reporter’s question about Evolution, Bernie took him to task and, by extension, those Christians who are convinced that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

I wrote to him, stating: “I believe in Evolution. You believe in Evolution. A great many people who vote for Republicans take the Bible literally and believe that God actually created everything in six 24-hour days. That being said, why should a GOP politician even bother answering a gotcha question that serves no other purpose than to help get his liberal opponent elected?”

My own response to the English bloke would be that there is no contradiction between science and religion; that the world evolved, but the force behind both its creation and its evolvement was God. And I would then quickly segue into prepared remarks about wiping out ISIS, and how our two countries should lead the fight against Islamic fascism, just as we did in the 40s when we united to defeat Nazism.

Or perhaps, if I were in a waspish mood, I might say, “Don’t be such a twit. I’m a politician, not a theologian. Would you ask the Archbishop of Canterbury how he feels about tariffs or corporate taxes?”

The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t really matter what senators and presidents think about Evolution because it will never influence their policy decisions. Belief in global warming, on the other hand, is Al Gore-inspired malarkey that has made him a billionaire and has the potential to bankrupt the industrial West. And when you get right down to it, that’s what motivates many of its most enthusiastic, anti-capitalistic, anti-American, proponents.

t seems to me that if Bernie Goldberg or anyone else is going to attack those peddling myths, it makes more sense to ridicule those whose myths can actually do irreparable damage to America.

Speaking of England, recently the Brits have noticed a huge spike in air rage incidents involving passengers attacking personnel, smoking in the loos and making dumb jokes about bombs on planes. They have traced the source of the problem to guest lounges at the airport, where people are fueling up for the flight with intoxicatingly large amounts of booze.

It reminded me that some years ago, I was taking a train from San Diego to L.A. and there were nonstop announcements, urging passengers to visit the bar car and imbibe. It was as if John Barleycorn had control of the P.A. system.

I found it so irresponsible and annoying that I wrote a letter to Amtrak. I pointed out that not only did the boozers grow increasingly loud and obnoxious as we made our way up the coast, but they were then stumbling off the train and getting into their cars to drive home.

Some bureaucrat wrote back, promising to look into it. My guess is that the only thing he looked into was how much dough Club Amtrak was raking in, and then received a bonus for suggesting they also start offering crack cocaine and heroin.

Something I don’t understand is why Vladimir Putin has been so reluctant to regain Russia’s lost empire. When he looks around and notices that the U.S and its NATO allies refuse to confront the small army of ISIS – an army, by the way, lacking an air force – you would think he’d begin salivating at the thought of gobbling up Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, East Germany and anything else in the European smorgasbord that might tantalize his appetite.

I mean, really, if beheadings and human bonfires aren’t enough to incite and unite what passes for western civilization, it’s hard to imagine that a few divisions of Russian tanks and infantry rolling across borders is going to meet with any real resistance.

On the other hand, in the Middle East we are seeing something some of us never imagined possible. The prime minister of Israel, the king of Jordan and the president of Egypt, are joining together in opposition to ISIS. It would be nice to see the United States taking its place among the nations of the willing, but so long as Barack Obama remains the world’s foremost apologist for Islamic terrorism, it’s probably just as well that America is not involved. If anything, we should probably be grateful that Obama hasn’t thrown his support to the jihadists.

In better news, Ash Carter, recently installed as this month’s Secretary of Defense, did the right thing by removing Admiral John Kirby as the spokesman for the Pentagon, and promising to replace him with a civilian. Listening to lies intended to prop up Obama and mislead Americans is bad enough without having to listen to them from a schmuck with a chest full of medals, who brought dishonor to his military uniform by performing the duties of a political hack.

It was recently divulged that the Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has collected two billion dollars since 2001, much of it from foreign nations, including the likes of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman. Some people feel this could prove an embarrassment to Hillary if she makes a run for the 2016 nomination, but I disagree. I don’t believe it is possible to shame this couple. I mean, after Monica Lewinsky and Benghazi, the fact that these two are still lusting for power tells you they not only don’t know the meaning of shame, they can’t even spell the word.

However, when it comes to money and politicians, it’s my feeling that any time someone gets into politics poor and ends up wealthy, he or she should wind up in jail. Better yet, I would deal with corrupt politicians the way rumor has it things were handled in ancient Rome. I’d tie them in a burlap bag with a wild cat and toss the bag in the river. For those of you who think we should prove ourselves to be more civilized than the Romans, I’d be willing to spare the wild cat.

Finally, we come to someone who in a less scandal-riddled administration would be attracting a good deal more attention. I refer to Joe Biden. When you take his nasty habit of running his hands over every woman within reach and combine it with his insistence on swimming in the nude in front of his female Secret Service agents, you have a V.P. who reminds a lot of people of their creepiest uncle – the one who eventually wound up in the clink or the loony bin.


By Burt Prelutsky