The reactions to Michael Richards’ racist rant at an LA comedy club have proven more outrageous than anything about the tirade itself. As a matter of fact, for all the talk about the one-time TV star wrecking his career, this over-hyped controversy may end up placing the comedian on the road to a major comeback.

Consider, for instance, the soaring sales of the latest “Seinfeld” DVD. Season 7 of the popular sitcom is outselling the Season 6 edition (released on the same day in 2005) by at least 75%, and it’s outperforming Season 5 by more than 90%, according to TMZ.com.

Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University opines: “I think the only explanation that could be is that there’s a Kramer curiosity factor.”

He’s undoubtedly correct. Obviously, the last few days have brought about more news stories about the Seinfeld show than at any time since it left the air – suddenly, a has-been, washed up, truly pathetic figure like Michael Richards is a hot media property, with everyone clamoring for interviews as he continues his nationwide “apology tour.”

Before his shameful explosion into ethnic animosity, I couldn’t have commented with any certainty as to whether Mr. Richards was alive or dead. How many people in this broad Republic ever thought about or talked about Kramer, or Richards, prior to the avalanche of negative publicity associated with his outburst?

When shyster-ette Gloria Allred stepped forward to demand monetary “reparations” for the two African-American audience members Richards had insulted, when the club owner suggested that Richard donate $500,000 to charity for each invocation of the n-word during his audience-clearing monologue, when Jesse Jackson attempted to use the occasion to demand more African-American presence in the world of entertainment, Kramer’s pursuers and critics helped keep his name and face in the news.

With Mel Gibson now offering his utterly gratuitous plea for mercy on the unfortunate Richards, we’ve clearly entered the “pity the poor guy” stage of this media sensation. Because of his lavishly publicized problems, casting directors on TV shows and movies will consider Richards in a way they’d never considered him before. At this point, his next appearances will bring a flurry of attention for any project to which he lends his lame presence.

I don’t wish ill to Michael Richards, but it does seem obvious that he harbors deep-seated racist attitudes. If his resort to the n-word to abuse black audience members who had been mildly disrespectful doesn’t demonstrate real racism, than what does? Do we really believe that you have to get to the level of lynchings and burning crosses and threats of overt violence to earn the r-word (racist)?

Ironically, this whole pathetic episode will end up reviving Richards’ all-but-moribund career. The whole discussion (Is he racist? Is he cured of racism? What will he do to make amends to the African-American community?) grants the comic the sort of national importance that such a thin, limited talent hardly deserves.

In the end, shouting the n-word repeatedly from a public stage ends up serving as a brilliant career move. If it can transform a stalled, cold comedian into a suddenly hot property, could the same sort of bigoted abuse provide further momentum for a career that's already going well?

I wonder if the same approach would work for a radio host….mmmmm…

And don’t you dare forget, you must tune in EVERY DAY (from 3 PM to 6PM, Eastern Time) to listen, live, to find out if I’ll actually try to employsuch outrageous strategy on the air. Yet another potent reason to catch every precious minute of the Michael Medved show…..

Critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies have been obsessed for more than a year with an odd effort to designate the struggle as a “civil war.” This week, NBC News as a matter of policy agreed to call the conflict a “civil war,” while UN Secretary General Kofi Anan and even former Secretary of State Colin Powell also suggested that this might be an appropriate description for the current state of the struggle. Anti-war forces are jubilant over their apparent rhetorical victory, but offer no explanation whatever as to why it’s important. Even if the whole world embraces the “civil war” phrase, why is that significant in any way for shaping future policy?

Obviously, anti-war forces would maintain that once we acknowledge that a civil war is raging on the ground, it becomes clear and inescapable that we have no role to play and we’ll be forced to pull our troops far away from the warring combatants.

But where has it ever been established that the U.S. can’t get involved in “civil wars”?

In Afghanistan in 2001, we entered a long running civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance and helped the good guys to decisive victory within a matter of weeks. No one looked at the situation and said, “Uh-oh, there’s a bloody civil war that’s been going on in that country for years, so the U.S. can’t possibly send its forces!” As a matter of fact, there’s another “civil war” raging in Afghanistan right now –-- a conflict that fits the classic “civil war” model far better than the situation in Iraq. In Afghanistan, there are two clearly recognizable sides (the Taliban and the Karzai government) warring for control. In Iraq, there’s no organized, recognizable, anti-government leadership of the insurgency, no program or even ruling clique that the terrorists seek to impose, no prominent leaders with whom the U.S. and our allies can negotiate or around whom the opposition can rally. The real struggle is governmental authority vs. bloody chaos—and the fact that bloody chaos is winning at the moment doesn’t mean that it’s a civil war.

In any event, the fact that Afghanistan does face a continuing civil war (unequivocally) doesn’t mean that the NATO countries (with 26 of our allies gallantly providing forces, some of them expert and significant) feel the need to pull out and disentangle themselves from the conflict.

In Bosnia and Kosovo the United States (under President Clinton) also inserted itself into the midst of horrible civil wars and, in both cases managed to reduce the nightmarish killing which, in its genocidal horror, far exceeded even the current misery of Iraq. During the 1980’s America also took sides in civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, eventually helping to establish functioning democracies in both Central American nations. Going further back in history, the Spanish American War of 1898 represented U.S. insertion into a Cuban civil war; our much less successful 11-year involvement in Vietnam also initially aligned us with one side in a civil war in South Vietnam (with the government forces verses the Viet Cong) before the North Vietnamese openly invaded.

One of the first major triumphs of the Cold War saw the U.S. and Britain helping the Greeks fight off a Communist insurgency in the Greek Civil War (that claimed some 100,000 lives in 1946-49). Going back to the Wilson and Harding administrations, we also sent a major expeditionary force to fight alongside the “White” forces in the spectacularly deadly Russian Civil War (with literally millions of casualties) that followed the Bolshevik Revolution (my father’s five sisters – who he never met – all died as civilian victims of that conflict).

Moreover, our unwillingness to take decisive action to stop genocide and senseless bloodshed in Rwanda, the Congo and Sudan/Darfur may register in histories of the era as some of this nation’s most significant moral failures.

This history is worth reciting only to defeat the idiotic leftist assumption that if Iraq gets classified by everyone as a civil war (a bogus classification, but one that’s gaining ground) then it means that the argument is over – we most get out.

Why? Since when? Who says?

Given our long, long record of involvement with properly designated “civil wars” (with some of those interventions major triumphs, others embarrassing setbacks) the idea that we can’t ever, under any circumstances, intrude ourselves into such conflicts in ludicrous.

No, I don’t think “civil war” is the right term for the chaotic, multi-faceted struggle in Iraq. If anti-war commentators want to say it’s become a sectarian conflict, Shiites vs. Sunnis, then which side does the government and its coalition supporters represent. Is Moqtada al Sadr (Shiite leader) on the side of the government (in which he’s represented) and its coalition partners or should he be classified as one of the insurgents? The inability to give any clear answer to that question demonstrates the difficult and inappropriate nature of the inane effort to squeeze and distort the Iraq situation to fit the paradigm of civil war.

And even if you succeed in forcing this unique and tragic war into that classic label, you’re still left with one huge, unanswerable, inescapable two word question---

SO WHAT?

Why would any well-meaning citizen deride the widely-acclaimed “Poverty Camp” program in Ceres, California that allows privileged American teenagers to experience some of the hardship and destitution of the developing world?

On my radio show today I made dismissive comments about this enterprise in order to expand on the same point featured in yesterday’s blog (about the recent SUICIDE FOR PEACE by a lefty activist in Chicago): that contemporary liberalism often exalts feelings above results, intentions above impact. While conservatives will try to measure a private action or public initiative based on the way it affects other people or changes the world at large, leftists emphasize the sincerity or emotion that motivated the behavior – regardless of its consequences broader, long-term consequences..

“Poverty Camp” takes teens and pre-teens from middle class and upper middle class backgrounds and gives them an immersion experience in a sort of Third World Disneyland. By chance, the kids are assigned to try to survive for a weekend in an African round house, a Cambodian bamboo shack on stilts, a Latin American urban slum, or an Appalachian cabin. The least fortunate campers are those who are designated “refugees” with no assigned home, no food rations, no possessions – forced to seek shelter and nourishment by imploring for mercy from the others. The food is meager and the means of preparation are primitive – in order to convey the sense of developing nation authenticity. The aim of the program is to underscore our absurdly privileged status in the United States, and to inspire young people to feel compassion and comprehension regarding the plight of the wretched of the earth.

That’s a worthy goal, but the weekend experience itself does nothing – absolutely nothing – to improve the lives of suffering masses. Instead of using precious resources to provide a memorable “slumming it” experience for pampered punks, that money could go directly to unfortunates in Africa, Asia, Latin America, even Appalachia (though equating America’s poor to the impoverished billions of the Third World is a misleading obscenity).

Even better, parents who want their kids to come into contact with poverty and suffering could actually encourage those children to volunteer at homeless shelters, feeding programs, battered women homes, senior citizen centers, day care centers, you name it. With no shortage of hurting and hopeless human beings (especially worthy of sympathetic attention in Christmas season) why not introduce youngsters to real poor people rather than getting them involved in an elaborate, lavish game of poverty-let’s-pretend? If the kids volunteered they’d not only learn about their unfortunate neighbors but might also get some satisfaction from making attempts, at least, to ameliorate their pain.

Many Christian organizations send kids out to do international mission work precisely for this purpose: to gain a new appreciation of our own blessings and the desperation of others, while simultaneously engaged in a real effort to help transform the victims by providing new values and new faith that can deliver them from their misery.

And that’s my other problem with the “Poverty Camp” concept. Apparently, the organizers treat hardship and deprivation as facts of life – some kids are randomly assigned to bamboo huts, others live in cardboard boxes in urban slums, still others are homeless refugees. But there’s no explanation of the fact that poverty in real life is hardly random: it’s the product of bad decisions by individuals, or bad values and bad governance by their societies. The conditions in the African round house may be appalling, but they reflect long-standing, dysfunctional elements in local cultures – very much including the sexual mores that have hugely facilitated the spread of AIDS. This doesn’t mean that poor people in developing nations deserve to die or to suffer: all human beings should, ideally, get some opportunity to escape the squalid circumstances that still afflict nearly one-third of humanity. But to pretend that those circumstances have no connection to the cultures, economic systems or political leadership that produced them is to ignore history and current reality.

In short, when teaching kids about poverty it’s important to stress the relationship of values and ideas to real-world consequences – rather than encouraging feelings of guilt and empathy as an end in itself. “Poverty Camp” is undoubtedly well-meaning, but ultimately masturbatory—producing pleasurable reactions of righteous and empathy among participants, but signifying nothing at all to anyone else. The kids may feel idealistic and pure and determined at the end of the experience, but those noble emotions (like all the good vibes produced by Hollywood celebs when they participate in some wildly hyped benefit concert) count for nothing without practical actions to change benighted, backward and unproductive societies.

Is it heroic to kill yourself for peace – even if your suicidal gesture does absolutely nothing to advance your agenda?

The fact that many liberals seem to answer this question in the affirmative speaks volumes about the empty, dysfunctional nature of contemporary leftist thinking.

On Monday morning (November 27^th) the Seattle Times featured an AP story under the headline, SUICIDE CAPTURES ATTENTION, BUT MESSAGE UNCLEAR. It describes the death more than three weeks ago of an experimental musician, writer, philosopher, photographer, anti-war activist and self described “renaissance man” named Malachi Ritscher. On November 3, on the eve of the fateful national elections, Mr. Ritscher, 52, arose early and set up a video camera on a freeway off-ramp in downtown Chicago. With tape running, he then proceeded to douse himself with gasoline and to set himself on fire. He intended his flaming corpse as a “call to the nation,” what the Associated Press described as “a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.”

The manifesto he left to the human race proclaimed: “Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world… If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world, I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed of the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country.”

Ironically, his self-immolation drew little attention until a recent article in the Chicago Reader, an alternative newspaper. When Ritscher’s story belatedly appeared on its pages, he began drawing admiring tributes on the publication’s website. One 28-year-old graduate student has committed herself to organizing protests and vigils to honor Ritscher’s commitment. “I can’t sit by and let this go unheard,” she said. When I discussed his death on my radio show today, four different callers expressed varying degrees of respect and approval for Ritscher’s deadly gesture.

Of course, no one can explain how a decision to burn yourself to death on a freeway off-ramp will help to rescue the “innocent civilians” Ritscher mentioned in his suicide note. Given the fact that nearly all of those unarmed bystanders have been killed by insurgents or militias in Iraq, and that the U.S. military devotes itself for the most part to protecting rather than murdering civilians, it remains unclear how even the immediate withdrawal of our forces would spare innocent lives. It’s even more perplexing to think that sane individuals could believe that a showy suicide would influence U.S. policy makers or sway public opinion in any way. Doesn’t the very nature of Ristcher’s unspeakably painful death suggest a mental derangement that’s hard to blame of George W. Bush and his policies?

Nevertheless, the dead man’s admirers cite his courage, his conviction, his idealism--- typifying the liberal tendency to judge intentions rather than results. To them, it doesn’t matter that his suicide achieved nothing. What counts is his sincerity, his fervent desire to advance the cause of peace.

In the same way, liberals judge national policies based on idealistic motivations rather than practical impact. They revere the “War on Poverty”; despite the fact that it almost certainly harmed the long-term interests of poor people, at least it reflected governmental concern for the less fortunate. In the same way, leftists supported Clinton’s interventions in Bosnia, Haiti, or Kosovo because the President meant to advance the cause of peace, not to serve any parochial U.S. interests. On the most elemental and intimate level, liberals love feeding programs or other handouts for the homeless – even though they help to extend the cycle of hopelessness. Motives count more than consequences.

Conservatives, on the other hand, focus on results, on real world outcomes, and appreciate those who benefit humanity even if they’re driven by selfish motives. Drug companies, for instance, save millions of lives, regardless of their concern for the profit motive, and those who build new homes or develop beautiful new neighborhoods deserve credit for their contributions, even if they hope to make a killing in the process. Yes, conservatives may express admiration for those who sacrifice themselves, but only if that sacrifice serves some worthy cause – saving people from disease, or turning the tide of battle in one of this nation’s necessary wars.

It’s hard to imagine conservatives ever saluting a suicide—especially a suicide with no beneficial consequences for anyone at all. Religious martyrs who willingly sacrifice themselves may lay down their lives, but they die, blameless, at the hands of others and seek to convey a message about their faith.

What message did Malachi Ritscher convey, beyond his hatred and disdain (“I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country”) for his own nation? Does masochistic, suicidal America-bashing actually advance the cause of peace?

The fact that Ritscher (who proudly operated several anti-war websites) and some of his admiring mourners believe that discrediting America through self-slaughter can actually achieve some higher goal demonstrates the demented depths of these deviant dissenters.

Peggy Noonan is an eloquent columnist and an insightful conservative but her recent attempt to cut through the national confusion on immigration shows the way that this issue warps the thinking of even normally clear-minded commentators.

In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal she wrote a piece under the heading, “What Grandma Would Say,” invoking the fact that “in most everyone’s family there was a grandma who used to sit quietly in the corner and say nothing. Then someone would ask her opinion just to be polite and she’d say something so wise, so commonsensical it stopped everyone in their tracks. And you realized that she was smart, that she’d lived a life and seen things.”

Okay, with this homey set-up, what is it that “Grandma” wants to say about immigration?

According to Noonan, “I think grandma would say, ‘Stop it. Build a wall. But put doors in the wall so when the problem is over, you can open the doors.’”

Sorry, Peggy, but there’s nothing there “so wise, so commonsensical” that I’m stopped in my tracks.

First of all, nearly all Republicans agree on the wisdom of building a wall (or fence)—and patrolling it effectively, much as the Border Patrol has been able to do with “Operation Gatekeeper” in the San Diego sector. Better border enforcement will certainly reduce the flow of illegals (there’s strong evidence, in fact, that it already has) while enhancing our ability to deal with the problems and challenges presented by the millions of the undocumented who are already here.

But Noonan’s appealingly simplistic posturing ignores two of the most salient facts about the current situation regarding illegal immigrants.

1) Close to half of the estimated 12 million illegals currently in the United States entered the country legally --- and then over-stayed their welcome, violating their visas or otherwise ignoring their obligation to turn in more paperwork, or just generally disappearing into a vast nation of 300 million. In other words, even a totally air-tight wall on our southern border (an obvious impossibility) would block less than half of the current flow. Other entrants would cross over from the all-but-unguarded Canadian side (an increasingly common practice with immigrants from everywhere, including Mexicans and Central America, who get into Canada with little difficulty and then head south) or else enter the country legally, as temporary visitors, and then decide to stay – a practice already followed by literally millions of their predecessors.

2) Noonan seems to suggest that “closing the borders” is as easy as flipping a switch, when there is no practical or realistic way to seal-off the US, reliably, from those who are determined to enter the country. Noonan berates our leaders for “trying to confuse people into thinking they’re closing the borders without actually closing them…It’s not convenient for any of them to close the borders… One wonders why we don’t stop illegal immigration, now.”

Isn’t it possible that “closing the borders” isn’t just inconvenient – but virtually impossible? That we “don’t stop illegal immigration, now,” because even the construction of hundreds of miles of high-tech fencing, and the stationing of hundreds of thousands of border patrol agents and federal troops, can’t halt the human tidal wave as completely as Noonan’s dreams and desires?

Given our current desperate struggle in Iraq, with 140,000 US troops fighting valiantly in an unpopular war, we’ve been unable to “close the border” with Syria or to stop the flow of jihadist combatants into that country. That Iraq-Syria border, by the way, is only a fraction as long as the US border with Mexico. Is our failure to block armed combatants from entering Iraq also because “it’s not convenient” or is that inability based upon the undeniable fact that patrolling hundreds (not to mention thousands) of miles of a desolate desert frontier is a profoundly difficult proposition?

Okay, so what does it mean to “close the borders” anyway? Noonan seems to suggest that it means more than merely blocking illegals – or else why would her “Grandma” suggest that “when the problem is over, you can open the doors.” Surely, Grandma doesn’t mean that at some point in the future we would welcome illegals, does she? So when she suggests we close the doors today until “the problem” is over she seems to suggest blocking all new entrants, legal and illegal alike. That’s the “solution” favored by Pat Buchanan, by the way.

Could we really shut out all immigrants (including the more than half-a-million who enter legally each year) and block all visitors too? Does any sane individual believe that sealing off the United States from all foreigners for some period of time would help our economy or our country? Would we also make it impossible for, say, the Japanese managers and automotive engineers from Honda and Toyota to enter the country to help supervise the new production plants that employ tens of thousands of Americans?

The reason that mainstream conservatives insist on comprehensive immigration reform rather than simplistic sloganeering is their recognition of government’s limited ability to control human behavior. Millions of immigrants seek to enter this nation every year to take the millions of jobs that open up for them in an ever-expanding economy. That doesn’t mean we should abandon all efforts to secure our borders or to take legal, operational control of the immigration we need – nor should we fail to restrict entry for all those with criminal records, or the intent to cheat the system once they arrive. But economic and logistical reality makes clear that a sharp reduction in illegal immigration must accompany some increase in legal immigration – or a guest worker program. If we don’t legalize and supervise some of the newcomers entering the United States, unfilled positions will prove so potent a lure that illegals will still find the means to enter our country. The best way to cut—very sharply-- the traffic of the undocumented is to make it far harder than it is today to enter the country illegally, while making it somewhat easier than it is to enter legally. For those who do enter legally, they should be closely monitored to make sure that they either go home after a period of time, or else begin the long, slow, orderly, meaningful path to permanent legal residency and citizenship.

Especially in light of the depressing Democratic victories in the recent elections, we need to get serious and realistic about the whole issue of immigration – rather than leaving the debate to liberals who will only open our borders further. For them, the only pre-requisite for earning legal status would be a commitment to vote Democratic, ideally for the next four generations.

Meanwhile, on our side of the aisle discussion of elegantly, instantly, effortlessly “closing the border” or wondering “why we don’t stop illegal immigration, now” isn’t helpful, and amounts to childish wishful thinking. H.L. Mencken offered two highly relevant observations that deserve citation now.

“For every great public problem,” he declared, “there is a simple solution that is obvious, appealing and wrong.”

He also noted: “The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

So much for Noonan’s confidence in “grandma’s” vaunted wisdom and commonsense. It’s entirely possible that in the fictional old lady’s simplistic approach to a serious national challenge she’s demonstrated senility more than profundity.

With two weeks' perspective on Republican reverses in the Congressional election one factor emerges as undeniable –

The American people wanted to vote AGAINST Washington, D.C., and against the perceived increase in power, corruption and mismanagement in the nation’s capital. Of course, it’s ironic that their anti-Washington vote delivered a majority for the Democrats—the party that specifically favors more, not less, centralized government over individuals, localities and states. It’s the Democrats who want federalized health care, an immediate increase in the federal minimum wage, more federal money for college expenses, more federal power in restricting trade, more federal tax dollars, more federal environmental controls, and so forth.

To rebuild a Republican majority, the GOP must rediscover its anti-Washington roots and run against the mess in D.C. – which will be identifiable as the Democratic mess in D.C.. The Bush administration will not be on the ballot next time, so if the American people want to vote against Washington corruption and to punish incumbents, the governing incumbents they can punish will be Democrats.

Of course, the anti-Washington strategy requires the right Presidential candidate – which means a former governor (Romney) or even a former mayor (Rudy) is probably better for that purpose than a current Senator (McCain). But even if McCain is the nominee, he’s been enough of a nag and a scold concerning D.C. corruption (particularly with his emphasis on curbing corporate welfare, earmarks, and campaign finance abuses) that he could, conceivably, pose as a credible anti-Washington candidate.

The people were in a mood to punish Congressional insiders in 2006. The continuance of Democratic control will depend on the very questionable ability of Pelosi, Reid and company to alter that mood. If they fail, the Republicans can embrace a great opportunity to return to their roots as the anti-Washington party.

Most of the traditions surrounding Thanksgiving involve food, but none of the nourishment normally associated with the holiday – Turkey, stuffing, cranberries, sweet potatoes, pecan pie – played any role in the Pilgrims’ “First Thanksgiving” in 1621. Yes, they ate with the Indians (who turned up more or less uninvited, with 90 hungry warriors) but the main course was venison, freshly hunted from the woods. As Godfrey Hodgson makes clear in his fine, informative new book “A GREAT AND GODLY ADVENTURE: THE PILGRIMS AND THE MYTH OF THE FIRST THANKSGIVING” (I’ll be speaking with him about it on my radio show on Friday, at 4 PM Eastern Standard Time) there were no Turkeys in Massachusetts at that time, and cranberries were inedible without sugar (which didn’t arrive until fifty years later).

Among the foods frequently consumed today, the one Thanksgiving staple that most authentically connects with the Pilgrims (and their Puritan counterparts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony) is beer. They loved the stuff and brewed it themselves – as did many of their descendants, including “Sons of Liberty” leader Sam Adams –whose beer-making efforts (largely unprofitable for him, alas) helped inspire a contemporary (and much more successful) brewery to honor his name. In any event, as a fish-a-tarian (I eat vegetables, dairy products and kosher fish, but not meat or fowl) I will enjoy the consolation of some fine, expertly prepared craft beers this afternoon while the rest of my family (and more than 20 close friends) feasts on the turkey and gravy and stuffing.

Meanwhile, beyond the food focus of the holiday, what other Thanksgiving traditions can conscientious Americans honor in 2006?

There are actually two songs that have become part of the holiday for millions of people. “Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmother’s House we Go” captures the wintry, festive atmosphere of the day, and invokes childish delight in a a get –together with family and friends, but never touches on the underlying themes of the celebration—the Harvest Festival notions of gratitude and dedication.

Fortunately, the other enduring Thanksgiving song expresses those themes memorably. The hymn known as “We Gather Together” combines a simple, gorgeous, heart-felt melody with words that reflect relief and appreciation at our undying (and undeserved) deliverance by God from the oppressions and oppressors of this world:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing

He chastens and hastens his will to make known;

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing

Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining

Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;

So from the beginning the fight we were winning

Thou, Lord, was at our side; all glory be thine!

We all do extol thee thou leader triumphant,

And pray that thou still our defender will be.

Let they congregation escape tribulation;

Thy name be ever praised! O lord, make us free!

The song became popular in the early twentieth century as “The Thanksgiving Hymn” in part because its words fit so well with the story of the Pilgrims and their escape from religious persecution. The hymn is also old enough to have been known by them --- in its original form it was a Dutch folk song called “Wilder dan wilt,” beginning with the words, “Wilder than wild, who will tame me.” In less than twenty years the melody had been adapted by Dutch Protestants fighting against Spanish-Catholic oppression. The new first line, “Wilt heden nu treden” – loosely translated as “We gather together”—described and exalted a revolutionary act, since the nationalist dissenters were forbidden from joining together in worship.

In a fascinating piece for the Wall Street Journal in 2005, Melanie Kirkpatrick traced the roundabout journey of the great song. Since the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before their dangerous (and ultimately deadly) journey to the New World, they might have heard it, learned it and loved it --- but they wouldn’t have used it in church. The Pilgrims sang only Psalms in their services, restricting their hymns to settings of Biblical text. Despite its fervent religiosity, the recently composed words of “We Gather Together,” in either Dutch or English versions, wouldn’t have qualified.

Nevertheless, the song survived after its first appearance in print in a 1626 collection of Dutch patriotic songs and became instantly popular as in the English speaking world after its musical presentation in an arrangement by a Viennese choirmaster (published in Leipzig in 1877) and its subsequent translation by American scholar studying in Leipzig, Theodore Baker, in 1894. He published his English version (the same words we use today) as a choral “Prayer of Thanksgiving” in 1894. By 1903, the song began to make regular appearances in American hymnals.

There’s something profoundly American, of course, in the route taken by “We Gather Together” – from its Dutch (some curmudgeons say Danish) origins as a folk song, to its appropriation by Calvinist rebels as a hymn of faith and defiance, to its musical transmission in Germany, to an American scholar in Europe who provided English words and then sent the song across the sea.

In any event, the themes and the substance of “We Gather Together,” along with more than 100 years of American tradition (an eternity in terms of our young nation) make this hymn one of the most authentic and meaningful aspects of the holiday. The rousing conclusion (“Let thy congregation escape tribulation/Thy name be ever praised! O Lord make us free!) resonates forever among our people who have so often faced threats from the “wicked” who seek to oppress and distress us. Obviously, we face those threats again today, but we can remain thankful and confident that the God of the Pilgrims “still our defender will be.”

In short, whatever you serve at your Thanksgiving table, “We Gather Together” will provide even more nourishment. On this great national festival, let us put aside differences (even those painful divisions between believers and skeptics) and join in hoping that whatever powers (or Power) may rule our destiny may indeed, “make us free!”

Even while they’re still celebrating their many victories of 2006, Democrats face a daunting dilemma regarding the upcoming presidential race in 2008: everyone expects Hillary to win the nomination, but no one expects that she can actually win the presidency.

The latest evidence of the party’s profound “Hillary Problem” surfaced on the front page of the New York Times today (Tuesday) under the headline: CLINTON WON EASILY, BUT BANKROLL SHOWS THE TOLL. The article quoted a liberal website in noting that Senator Clinton was guilty of “blowing a shameful $36 million on a shoo-in campaign.” She spent more than any other candidate for Senate anywhere in the country, despite confronting an underfunded, unknown opponent who she beat by an overwhelming 30 points. Her profligate spending (including $13,000 for flowers, $746,450 for catering, $27,261 for valet parking, and as much as $800 in a single month for credit card interest) left her with little cash on hand for her upcoming presidential race and, more importantly, showed a sloppy, spendthrift management style that should worry even her most committed supporters.

The doubts about Hillary (all but universal among Democratic insiders) have contributed to a flurry of candidates who seem determined to challenge her for the nomination: Senator Kerry, of course, and former Senator Edwards, and Senator Biden, and Senator Bayh, and Governor Vilsack and Congressman Kucinich and, perhaps Senator Obama.

While the GOP race has already narrowed to just three serious candidates (McCain, Giuliani and Romney—see my blog from yesterday) the Democratic field remains wide open – reflecting the widespread assumption that Hillary may remain the obvious frontrunner for the nomination, but would face a tough time winning a majority of the electoral votes in a general election.

In a sense, she’s in the same position as Bob Dole when he sought the Republican nomination of 1996, or John Kerry when he secured the Democratic nomination in 2004: a drab, safe selection that inspires more respect than enthusiasm among party activists. They assume it’s “her turn,” even though they realize (as with Dole and Kerry) that she carries political negatives that will make it difficult for her to win.

If the Democratic field continues to include a half-dozen (or more) rivals to Hillary’s claim on the nomination, she’s almost sure to grab the delegates she needs against a fragmented opposition. She remains by far the best known candidate, and there’s no state in which her support would dip below 30%. With numerous rivals, that core backing will prove more than enough in every primary: especially if she maintains her status as the only female candidate facing a collection of men. In her campaign, she becomes the issue, and people who attempt to run to the right of her (Bayh, Vilsack) or to the left of her (Kerry, Kucinich) or to beat her from both sides at once by combining a more conservative style with more leftist policy positions (Edwards, Biden) will probably find themselves frustrated by her celebrity status that transcends issues or ideology.

If she weren’t a woman, her opponents for the nomination could question her on the basis of sheer competence: how can someone run credibly for President with zero administrative experience in any aspect of human endeavor (Bush had run several businesses, and served as Governor of Texas for six years) and with a Senatorial campaign that squandered $800 in a single month on credit card interest? In the current situation, however, anyone who questioned her administrative capacity (remember her task force on healthcare?) would be charged with “sexism,” or denigrating the ability of women to serve in executive positions.

The bottom line is that whatever her shortcomings as a public speaker, TV presence, and debater (she’s gotten much better in the last few years, as a matter of fact), her biggest problem remains her hopelessness in administrative expertise. Republicans should continue to relish the chance to run against an administratively incompetent candidate who squanders tens of thousands of dollars on valet parking, $13,000 on flowers, and $800 (in a month!) for credit card bills that no one paid promptly.

The only potential rival who might still succeed in wresting the nomination from Hillary’s grasping, nail-bitten fingers is Al Gore. With his acclaimed documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" poised to win an Oscar, his impassioned popularity on the anti-war left, and the sense that he was horribly gypped in the election of 2000, Gore could enter the race even at a very late date and raise the money and support needed to win.

He remains so quirky and bizarre that one can only hope he will self-destruct as he did six years ago, but Gore’s familiarity to the general public (even his idiosyncrasies have begun to look endearing) might make him a formidable opponent indeed when the key question may be, “Which candidate scares you most?” Al Gore should look scary to all Americans (mentally troubled individuals—nutburgers—ought never be granted access to nuclear weapons), but his sheer silliness(combined with self-deprecating humor) helps to reassure people that he’s harmless. I never thought I’d live to say it, but we’ve reached the point where Republican strategists should fear (and try to block) Al Gore.

Newt Gingrich dropped a broad hint over the weekend that he wouldn’t mount a serious race for the presidency in 2008. By saying that he won’t decide whether to run until September, 2007 – a mere four months before the Iowa Caucuses –he indicates that he won’t be able to put together a credible campaign. He wants to keep the door open just a little bit for a potential run – in part, because it’s always possible (though most unlikely) that a vast groundswell of public support would force his hand and, more importantly, because he can participate more prominently in the national political conversation as long he hasn’t ruled out a Presidential race. That appears to be Gingrich’s real aim in this upcoming battle for the nomination – to play a strong role in the conflict of ideas and principles as various factions contend for control of the GOP. We need Newt Gingrich to take part in this essential conversation with his customary zest and brilliance. We don’t necessarily need a highly personal focus on his past and present as a potential presidential candidate.

Newt’s kind words about Mitt Romney also suggested that the former Speaker is taking a step back from the campaign. His mention of Romney as the conservative alternative to McCain and Giuliani demonstrates a canny analysis of the state of the struggle at the moment. With the two “moderate” or “maverick” candidates as the two front runners, and dividing the votes of those who may want to move away from the party’s conservative core principles, there’s an obvious opening for a strong campaign on the right to rally the GOP base. With Allen, Santorum and Frist out of the picture, and Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback both too obscure and too quixotic to take seriously at the moment, Romney is the obvious guy. Of course, his Mormon faith raises questions in some quarters, but the more openly he speaks about it in the months ahead the more likely that even doubters will get used to the idea of backing him anyway.

McCain, Giuliani and Romney all have the ability to raise huge sums of money and to conduct serious campaigns in every corner of the country. Unless either McCain or Rudy gets out of the race, leaving the other guy a clear field among moderates and independent-minded Republicans, the most credible conservative candidate will enjoy a clear edge. And that edge, it’s becoming increasingly obvious, will go to Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

Over the weekend, the cover-up continued regarding the dark, depressing, deeply disturbing film misleadingly titled “Happy Feet.”

On the day of its release (Friday, November 17), a typical newspaper ad featured a laughing, dancing penguin waving his flaps and kicking up his feet, along with effusive quotes from critics:

“Adults and kids alike will be dancing in the aisles.” – Don Jewel, Life & Style Weekly

“THE MUST SEE MOVIE – one of the most wonderful in years. A miracle of originality and imagination.” – Gene Shalit, TODAY

These shameful and dishonest “blurbs” don’t just speak to a matter of taste--- of course, critics will disagree about the quality of any feature film. My concern with the suggestion that “adults and kids alike will be dancing in the aisles” is that it utterly misstates the nature of the cinematic experience on offer. Even most (but, alas, not all) of those who admire “Happy Feet” acknowledge that it hardly constitutes a feel good frolic for the youthful audience.

In the New York Times, for instance, the always eloquent Manohla Dargis wrote a rave review but showed enough respect for her readers to write honestly about the movie’s disturbing elements. Commending director George Miller for presenting “a vision of the world seen through a glass darkly,” she declared: “Even in a story about singing-and-dancing fat and feather, Mr. Miller can’t help but go dark and deep….Tucked inside this nominally feel-good jukebox musical with its crooning and swooning critters is a piercingly sad story about the devastation being visited on the natural world. The tapping we hear, as it turns out, is drilling holes in our hearts….Mr. Miller…plunges his hapless hero into a nightmare worthy of Samuel Fuller’s ‘Shock Corridor.’ As politically pointed as it is disturbing, it is a view of hell as seen through he eyes and ears of creatures we foolishly, tragically call dumb.”

“Shock Corridor,” by the way, is a deeply disquieting, 1963 film noir about a reporter who goes undercover as a patient in an insane asylum to try to solve a murder, but ends up losing his own sanity in the most horrifying manner.

Why would any responsible parent want to bring the children to a “Shock Corridor” for kids? Would most moms and dads truly welcome a film proudly described by its honest fans as “disturbing” and “a nightmare” and “a view of hell,” simply because it is “politically pointed” with its descriptions of “the devastation being visited on the natural world.”?

The effort to mask this reality with talk about “singing and dancing in the aisles” may succeed in bringing in large, eager audiences for the film’s opening weekend (parents are always hungry for kid-friendly animated entertainment) but once the word-of-mouth kicks in, watch for the quick box-office collapse of “Happy Feet.” No other recent release so richly deserves to fail. Perhaps that all-but-inevitable rejection will send a message that the American people don’t welcome the idea that our entertainment-crazed kids should be held hostage to the political agendas, dark obsessions and dishonest marketing campaigns of irresponsible filmmakers and unscrupulous studios.

Hollywood produces plenty of lousy movies but the releases that bother me most are those that feature false and misleading advertising. The new animated extravaganza “Happy Feet” features some of the most dishonest marketing of 2006, and deserves special condemnation for it mendacious mediocrity.

The film features the voices of A-list Hollywood stars --- Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Elijah Wood, Robin Williams—and the trailers and TV ads suggest a fun-for-the-whole-family romp with some of the awe-inspiring, wonder-of-creation views of penguin peculiarities that made “March of the Penguins” one of the top grossing documentaries in history.

While the computer-generated animation often fills the screen with visually spectacular Antarctic vistas, the story and characters will irritate most potential viewers for several reasons:

1) This may be the darkest, most disturbing feature length animated film ever offered by a major studio. At least 80% of the film’s running time shows its penguin characters in pain or danger. Scenes of terrifying leopard seals and killer whales trying to devour the protagonist and his friends are so intense as to guarantee nightmares; the PG rating is a joke since the film is wildly inappropriate for young viewers under seven (and their parents). Rather than sending you out of the theatre with a song in your heart (there’s a big focus in the script on “heart songs”) the movie produces feelings of fright, discomfort, even guilt. The title “Happy Feet,” suggesting a feel-good frolic, could hardly be more deceptive for a deeply ill-considered project that will make most audience members feel gloomier and more depressed than they did when they entered the theatre.

2) The propagandistic theme suggests that the biggest menace for the lovable penguins is the human race --- stealing the fish on which the birds depend, or ruining planet earth through pollution and global warming. There’s also scenes of a penguin captured for a zoo and tormented to the point of mental incapacity by unfeeling people Many classic animated films (even “Bambi”, or the recent “Open Season” and “Over the Hedge)” featured the equation animals=good/humans=bad but no movie for kids has gone so far in trying to induce guilt for membership in species homo sapiens.

3) There’s also a bizarre anti-religious bias operating unmistakably and gratuitously in the film. The penguin protagonist (known as “Mumbles Happy Feet”) finds himself harshly treated by the aged leaders of the flock, who worship a false God called “the Great Wind” and decry and persecute anyone who dares to challenge their “sacred” traditions. The voice of Robin Williams (in one of his two parts) also portrays a great religious guru and sage who turns out to be a complete phony, with no special knowledge of any kind. When intrepid penguins finally make contact with the “aliens” (otherwise known as humans) the first menacing structure they see is a church.

4) As in so many other recent films, there’s a subtext that appears to plead for endorsement of gay identity. Mumbles (the voice of Elijah Wood) displeases his parents and the leaders of his community because he’s born different, and makes an impassioned plea that he can’t possibly change – and they should accept him as he is.

Aside from all the politically correct messages, the movie remains singularly depressing, frustrating, scary and disturbing. An ardent love affair is frustrated for no apparent reason, with the main character’s inamorata choosing a crude, fat penguin she cares nothing about and producing many progeny. The movie’s conclusion – with tap=dancing penguins somehow persuading humankind to go to the U.N. (the United Nations Building even makes an appearance) to protect the Antarctic food chain-- makes no sense at either the emotional or plot-coherence level.

In short, “Happy Feet” comprises a strikingly downbeat evening (or afternoon) at the multiplex – an appalling waste of both time and money for patrons who will expect a far more cheerful, cold-climate-but-warm-hearted experience. The last time a major studio launched a comparably misleading ad campaign, they tried to sell Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” as a Rocky-in-sports-bra/noble underdog boxing movie--- deliberately hiding its intense assisted suicide theme. For “Happy Feet,” they seem to hide the movie’s darker, dysfunctional messages and to ignore its questionable elements for innocent kids.

With this posting, consider yourself warned: “Happy Feet” deserves designation as “Crappy Feet” and counts as one of the biggest disappointment of the onrushing holiday season.

According to conventional wisdom, racism accounts for the persistent and profound disparities in economic success among various ethnic groups in this society. If that’s the case, however, how can one explain the shocking extent of the “Asian advantage”?

New data from the Census Bureau shows Asian-Americans leading the way in earning capacity. While “Whites,” still a heavy majority in the United States, earned median household income of $50,622 in 2005, “Asians” easily and substantially outdid them, bringing home median household income of $60,367. This disparity – amounting to a difference of nearly $10,000 – proves all the more surprising considering the fact that Asians are more than three times more likely than Whites to be foreign born – usually an indicator of financial difficulty rather than economic success.

How can one explain the Asian advantage?

Surely, it has nothing to do with racism, or discrimination against the white majority. Considering the recent history (and present persistence) of anti-Asian prejudice (remember the infamous “Macaca” remark?), no one can suggest that Americans of Asian ancestry outperformed whites because of bigotry or ethnic favoritism in their behalf.

To explain the success of Asian Americans one most turn, rather, to family structure, personal values, and cultural influences. Obviously, these factors play the dominant role in determining the success and failure of all ethnic groups in the society.

If racism alone can’t explain Asian prosperity relative to Whites, then why should we assume that racism alone explains African-American and Latino under-performance relative to Whites? The same factors that make Asians so disproportionately successful – solid family structure, cultural emphasis on hard work and reverence for education – may well work against the efforts by other minority groups to “catch up” in relation to the White majority.

Values matter – and the persistence of racism can’t undo the impact of functional values on Asian households, nor can recent reductions in racism make up for the dysfunctional values in too many black and Hispanic homes. Ultimately, prosperity for all ethnic groups in the United States depends on the behavioral norms and family commitments embraced by those groups in both intimate and public settings.

For forty years, Arab propaganda has concentrated on perpetrating a pernicious myth about the modern state of Israel. Unfortunately, these endlessly repeated lies have helped convince even some of Israel’s well-wishers that the Jewish state originated through some guilty, suspect process. As a caller to my radio show described this pseudo-history today: “After all, you can’t deny the fact that the Jews drove the Arabs from their land.”

Of course, you can deny that “fact,” because it’s not true in any sense.

Three incontestable realities give the lie to the notion that Israel pushed Arabs off their ancestral homes.

1). Contrary to the ignorant blather of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the re-establishment of a Jewish state in the ancient land of Israel did not take place as a result of the Holocaust (which he denies anyway). A significant Jewish community survived and even thrived in the ancestral homeland for more than three thousand years, despite repeated attempts to destroy and exile the children of Israel. The modern program of re-settlement and nation-building began in earnest in 1881, and by the time Hitler began his slaughter of Jews in Europe, 600,000 Jews had already moved to Israel and established hundreds of flourishing communities. When the United Nations partitioned the land to establish one Jewish state and one Palestinian state (a solution accepted by Jewish leaders, but not by Arabs) the Jews (according to all census data) represented a clear majority in the land assigned to them.

2). In all the 67 years of significant Jewish settlement prior to UN recognition of the new State of Israel, the Jews made no attempt whatever to “drive the Palestinians from their land.” In fact, the official British population statistics show that between World War I and World War II, Jewish population increased by 470,000, but the non-Jewish population rose by a staggering 588,000. In other words, far from “driving Palestinians away,” the new Jewish settlers welcomed new Palestinian settlers by the hundreds of thousands --- drawn to that tiny corner of the Middle East because of the economic progress that the arriving Zionists made possible. The land that Jewish settlers and builders acquired was never seized (the ruling Turks and their British successors never authorized seizure); it was purchased—most of it (73% of all acquisitions between 1880 and 1948) from large Arab landowners.

3). During all the years of Zionist settlement prior to the UN Partition plan in 1947, there were no Palestinian refugees-- none!--- though there were hundreds of thousands of new Palestinian arrivals into the future land of Israel. The refugee problem only began once the Palestinian leadership, and then the five surrounding Arab states, declared war on Israel and tried to slaughter or expel the Jewish population. For the most part, the 600,000 Palestinian refugees simply ran away from the fighting – fighting that was unequivocally launched by Arabs, not Jews. In other words, it wasn’t Jewish settlement that caused the refugee problem; it was, rather, the Arab refusal to accept any Jewish presence in the Middle East.

That refusal remains the core of the conflict. Regardless of minor adjustments in Israeli or US policy, there will be no comprehensive peace in the Middle East as long as Arabs (and other Muslims) refuse to recognize the right of the Jewish people to the reborn, ancient homeland which they have restored over the course of 120 years, and defended with singular courage, determination and sacrifice in six major wars.

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For additional information providing a corrective to current distortions about the Middle East, please check out CD versions of my special broadcasts “Why They Fight: Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” and “Five Middle Eastern Wars.” Both are available through Tree Farm Communications, 800-468-0464.

The recent elections produced numerous successes for Democratic Jewish candidates but simultaneously delivered setbacks for the state of Israel.

Democrats of Jewish ancestry like the new Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland and Bernie Sanders of Vermont turned up among the most conspicuous winners – increasing the number of Jewish Senators by two (to fourteen) and Jewish House members by five. More importantly, Congressional veterans like Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Congressman Tom Lantos of California, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan wil take over the leadership of some of the most significant committees in both houses of Congress,l vastly increasing the number of Jewish committee chairs. In the outgoing Congress, only one Jew – Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee – headed a major committee in either house.

At the same time, friends of Israel acknowledge that the newly empowered Democrats are less committed to support for the Jewish state than the Republicans they replace. Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, told the New York Times about his disappointment in the election outcome since Mr. Bush represented “possibly the friendliest president we’ve ever had.” Meanwhile, the forty members of the House who most regularly criticize Israel and back the Palestinians are all Democrats. Four of those 40 – John Conyers of Michigan, John Dingell of Michigan, Nick Rahall of West Virginia and David Obey of Wisconsin —will now chair key committees. During the recent war, John Dingell went so far as to say that the United States shouldn’t take sides between the state of Israel and the terrorists of Hezbollah.

This anomaly – with Jewish Americans gaining power in the recent electoral shift, but the state of Israel losing influence – helps demonstrate the absurdity of claims by anti-Semites on the right and the left that “Zionists” or “Friends of Israel” somehow dominate our political system and pushed us into war in Iraq. As a matter of fact, the Jewish members of the House and Senate (who were evenly split on authorizing the liberation of Iraq) were less likely to back war than the non-Jewish members (who supported going to war by two to one).

Moreover, Jewish voters continue to back Democrats at the same time that the Donkey Party proves far more ambivalent toward Israel than the GOP. According to Gallup, when asked to choose whether they sympathized more with Israel or with the Palestinians, Democrats split up the middle, while Republicans backed Israel by more than five-to-one.

In the just concluded Congressional elections, however, exit polling shows that more than 70% of Jewish Americans stupidly and unforgivably voted for Democratic candidates. This demonstrates that liberalism—not loyalty to the Torah, or even concern for the state of Israel—represents the real religion of most American Jews.

There’s still plenty of confusion concerning the way that last week’s Democratic victory will impact our policy in Iraq but there’s no doubt at all about one domestic consequence: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and company will succeed in keeping their campaign promise to raise the minimum wage. Voters in six states provided overwhelming margins for ballot initiatives lifting the lowest hourly wage above $5.15, and national polling shows majorities in excess of 80% favoring a major boost at the federal level. Pelosi has promised an immediate increase from $5.15 to 7.25 – in other words, mandating a 40% instant raise for that 2% of American workers (mostly very young, in entry level jobs) who currently earn the minimum. There’s no discussion, of course, as to how businesses that employ low-wage workers will pay for this increase without firing some of their employees (an inevitable consequence) or sharply raising prices and adding to inflation, or both.

The stampede to raise the minimum wage makes people feel good, righteous and generous—with other people’s money. There’s no way to stop it, unfortunately --- chastened Republicans (including the President) will hardly stand in the way of a wildly popular measure supported by the public by margins of more than four to one.

Nevertheless, it’s important to look at some of the economic realities behind this implacable but idiotic initiative in order to provide some perspective for the next battle to defend common sense.

During the campaign, soon-to-be House Speaker Pelosi declared: “Republicans have never hesitated to cut taxes for the wealthiest few but they have refused to give America’s workers a raise for nearly a decade…. That’s immoral, and Democrats will take our nation in a new direction by raising the minimum wage.” (Insert wild applause here).

There’s so much that’s wrong and dishonest in this slick sloganeering that it’s hard to know where to begin. On the most obnoxious level, the notion that Republicans “have refused to give America’s workers a raise for nearly a decade” is ludicrous on its face. For the 98% of Americans who work above minimum wage, there have been many raises in the last decade; in fact, the median wage earner brought home 4% more in September, 2006 than he did in September, 2005.

Even more significantly, the Pelosi propaganda attempts to suggest that both policy decisions she cites – cutting taxes and raising the minimum wage – involve taking funds from the same pile of money. The GOP position seems “immoral” because they give money to the “wealthiest few” with funds that could otherwise serve to give “America’s workers” a raise.

The stupidity and dishonesty in this notion should appall all fair-mined people, Republican and Democrat alike. Neither cutting taxes nor raising the minimum wage involves the government spending money. The government, after all, doesn’t have its own money. The Feds don’t make money, they simply take money – from taxpayers. A tax cut involves a decision to take less, not to give away more.

And the government does nothing to pay the costs of raising the minimum wage. Private business people, running small or large companies, bear the cost of such an increase, not the government. Pelosi’s attempt to suggest that there’s some connection between cutting taxes and raising the minimum wage makes as much sense as saying, “Hey, I’m upset because my boss isn’t paying more to the low end workers at our company, at the same time that my rich neighbor pays less in taxes.” You may want your neighbor to pay more to the government, while you also want your boss to pay more to his part-time janitors, but the connection between the two desires is non-existent.

In both cases – pushing for tax cuts (across the board, every time) while opposing raises in the minimum wage – Republicans took a stand for principle. What principle? The core conviction to which the GOP must passionately return: that shrinking government is good, while growing government is destructive. Letting people keep more of the money they earn themselves involves shrinking government – and diminishing its interference in our lives. Raising the minimum wage, however, increases the influence of government in our lives – and deserves resistance. If you’ve been paying some workers at the rate of $5.15 an hour and the government instantly inserts itself to demand that you most give them a 40% raise (or else fire them), this constitutes a huge intrusion of federal power in your private affairs.

Resistance may be futile at this point, but the issues behind the debate (as exemplified by Ms. Pelosi’s ditzy demagoguery) require our serious attention, even in a lost cause.