Burt's Eye View: Clunkers, Clunkers Everywhere

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 to get money if we delivered politicians to some collection center. Just imagine getting $4,500 for dropping off, say, Henry Waxman at a junkyard where, together with fellow California jalopies like Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, they could be crushed and shipped off to China. You would have to agree that would be a pretty good deal even if no money changed hands.

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One of my liberal readers sent me an e-mail stating that the health care system in America is in terrible shape and needs a huge overhaul, which is why he was supporting Obama’s plan. I wrote back to say that I agreed that the system needed fine-tuning, but, like Charles Krauthammer, I felt that the work consisted mainly of separating health insurance from employment and bringing about radical tort reform so that doctors didn’t have to spend more time worrying about being sued than they did about the health of their patients. I went on to add that if I was wrong, things could always be changed, but if he and Obama were wrong, a huge federal bureaucracy would be created and you can’t kill one of those even with a silver bullet or a wooden stake through its heart.

Speaking of money, I read recently that a child born in 2008 will cost his or her parents just under $300,000 to raise to the age of 18. As if that’s not bad enough, it will then take another $100,000 or so to get him or her through college; at which point, after four years of indoctrination by tenured pinheads, they’ll come to regard their meal tickets as bourgeois ignoramuses. My advice to prospective parents is to get a dog. You’ll get unconditional love; they’ll never insist on borrowing your car and, best of all, they will never bite the hand that feeds them.

Usually when people suggest that a picture is worth a thousand words, I, who specialize in doling out wisdom a thousand or so words at a time, take it personally. However, even I thought the now famous photo taken at the beer summit was worth several thousand words. While Cambridge police officer Crowley assisted the physically handicapped Henry Gates down the White House steps, Barack Obama blithely ignored him, far more concerned with having his picture taken than with helping his old friend.

Speaking of Obama, every time I see him, the theme song from “The Jeffersons” starts playing in my head: “We’re movin’ on up to the east side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky…We finally got a piece of the pie.” There’s no insult intended. Not to George Jefferson, at any rate. He worked very hard, opening and operating a chain of dry cleaning stores. He wasn’t a community organizer, which, in case you weren’t aware of it, is code for a left-wing activist. Obama was up to his ears in dirty Chicago politics; Jefferson, on the other hand, was dedicated to cleaning dirty laundry.

Because I had recently acknowledged that I had grown disenchanted with Bill O’Reilly, a reader asked me who my media favorites are. There are several I enjoy, including Charles Krauthammer, Walter Williams, Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham and Lee Rodgers. A couple of others that I admire are Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. Both convey a great deal of passion, and I find Beck very funny.

Frankly, I don’t know why the fact that Savage has been denied entry to England hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Like the member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders, the reason for his exclusion is the direct result of Islamic pressure groups. Savage’s daily radio show, one of the highest-rated in America, isn’t even broadcast in England. But that didn’t prevent Home Secretary Jacqui Smith from putting him on the same list of undesirables as known terrorists and murderers. Smith declared in her announcement: “We want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists.” So, in a clumsy attempt to be even-handed, the loony Brits suggested that a Jewish talk show host was as dangerous as Muslim terrorists, neo-Nazis and a Russian serial killer.

But I probably shouldn’t be throwing stones at the English, considering that Obama and his commissars are labeling Americans who just happen to oppose Cap & Trade, billions for clunkers and to the havoc the leftists are trying to wreak on our health care system, as brainless sheep. Large groups of citizens rise up to voice their grievances and he calls them mobs, claims that grass roots are really made of Astroturf and tells his minions to ape the Soviets and rat out their friends and neighbors. Some people I know refer to what Obama is doing as social engineering. I think it’s something even worse: socialist engineering.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed that whenever a black conservative voices an opinion, the liberal claque insists that he’s not an authentic black, and when a white conservative voices an opinion, Obama’s sycophants insist he’s not an authentic American.

When Obama was running for the presidency, a few of us Paul Revere wannabes were warning you: “The reds are coming! The reds are coming!”

Naturally, Obama, a born and bred race hustler who learned his lessons well from Jeremiah Wright, wanted you to believe that the only reason people could possibly have for opposing him was his race. But it was never about the color of his skin. It was always about the color of his politics.