Burt Prelutsky

I have come clean in the past about having been friends with Rep. Henry Waxman. We had met in the late 1950s at UCLA and wound up spending a lot of time over the following decade playing cards. In fact,

I wasn’t surprised that Rep. Joe Wilson felt compelled to apologize to President Obama for calling him a liar. I also wasn’t surprised to hear that within 24 hours, thousands of liberals had sent in over $200,000 in contributions to

Recently, I had a very odd experience. No, I didn’t wake up 30 years younger and with a full head of hair. That would have been odd but nice, whereas the experience I actually had was merely bizarre. Like most

It was a little over 30 years ago that I first laid eyes on the remarkable Larry Gelbart. The occasion was our high school’s 50th anniversary. I had been selected to host the celebration in the auditorium. It was also

There are certain dates that are indelibly etched in our minds because they were drummed into us in school, such as the 1066 Battle of Hastings; some because they commemorate joyous events such as July 4th, December 25th or the

For the longest time, I’ve insisted that liberalism is the religion of choice for atheists, agnostics and run-of-the-mill secularists. After all, be they Christians, Jews, Moslems or Buddhists, the truly devout accept the tenets of their religion on faith. They

Before last year’s election, I heard a lot of people claim they didn’t feel they knew who Obama really was. For my part, I felt I knew him all too well. Which was why I didn’t like him and wouldn’t

Sometimes, I must confess, I find myself feeling like one of those cursed individuals like Job and Sisyphus. In my case, the curse takes the form of trying to be rational in a mad world. My particular albatross is trying

Unlike most conservatives, when I first heard about cash for clunkers, I got very excited. But then I found out that it involved people turning in their used cars. I had jumped to the conclusion that we were all going

I suspect that because George Bush and Condoleezza Rice were so respectful of Muslims, constantly telling us that theirs is a religion of peace, some otherwise sensible Americans actually began to believe it. Now we have a president who not

If I had to explain Americans to a Martian, I would be hard-pressed. It would be especially difficult when it came to liberals. But, there are even conservatives who confound me. For instance, why would any Republican belong to AARP?

By this time, I’m sure we’ve all heard more than we care to about Professor Henry Gates. Still, I can’t let it go without tossing in my two cents. Admitting he didn’t know the facts of the case didn’t prevent

I have received a number of e-mails over the years from disgruntled parents griping about the left-wing indoctrination their kids are forced to undergo at colleges and universities all over America. One minute, it seems, the kids are sane, or

Nobody has to tell me things are going from bad to worse in America. The question that preys on my mind is when it was that we began our descent. Some would say it started when Jimmy Carter turned his

The other day, I received an e-mail from a lady who let me know she was in the habit of forwarding my articles to her daughter who’s away at college. Apparently, she felt I could provide the young woman with

Frankly, I’m beginning to feel a lot like Howard Beale, the character portrayed by Peter Finch in the 1976 release, “Network.” He insisted that people get up right now and go to the window, open it, stick their heads out

I often find myself thinking that if liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. For instance, consider the uproar from the left when Don Imus opened his silly yap about the black women on the

Last year, an acquaintance named Dave, a television writer who had fallen on hard times, decided to make an economy move to South Carolina. An indicator of his sour mood is that he now includes “The Swamp” in his e-mail

A while back, I heard Obama bragging about his first few months in the White House. When he claimed he had done as much in that period as any president in history, my initial thought was for the first time

The question that’s been preying on my mind is who is best suited to study those strange beings known as liberals. It strikes me that they’d be fit subjects for psychiatrists, who might be in a position to figure out

In recent days, my attention was grabbed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. The one I applaud is the former Mrs. Sakharov. In a speech delivered in Norway, she

Those on the Left who have trashed George Bush for this entire decade claim they weren’t being rude or unpatriotic, but were simply talking truth to power. That has a nice ring to it, so I think I’ll give it

One of the good things that came out of the tragic events of 9/11 is that heroism has reacquired some of its original luster. I’m not certain when it lost it, not at all certain when bravery above and beyond

Whenever I have suggested that left-wingers aren’t normal human beings, and have wondered if perhaps they’re some weird interplanetary life form like the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the liberals accuse me of indulging in ad hominem attacks,

I used to be what I thought was a liberal. If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a