CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, May 5, 2003

The "Should Eat Crow But Won’t Awards"

One of the many benefits of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a renewed focus on our Constitutionally-protected right to say whatever we please, whenever we please and wherever we please. That Constitutional right, however, does have a few constraints. The law provides penalties for libel and slander. You can’t yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. And, we have a patriotic tradition of not speaking ill of our nation and its leaders before foreign audiences in foreign lands.

We even have a tradition that former U.S. Presidents do not try to undermine the foreign and military policies of their successors in office – especially, when traveling abroad. But, for some reason, only former Republican Presidents honor that tradition. Our Constitution even permits us to make complete fools of ourselves, with no requirement to apologize when subsequent events and facts prove us wrong. This, of course, brings us to the list of the top ten or so celebrities who have earned the “Should Eat Crow But Won’t Awards.”

10. White House correspondent Helen Thomas routinely calls George W. Bush, “the worst President in U.S. history,” is of Arab descent, dislikes our support of Israel and resigned from UPI when its ownership passed from Muslim to Christian hands. She also gets the “Biased Religious Bigot Award.”

9. Tie: Colonel David Hackworth, Generals Wesley Clark and Barry McCaffrey and other retired military pundits for CNN and MSNBC for trying to fight World War II over again.

8. The Dixie Twits (AKA Chicks) who, from the safety of London, allowed their lead singer to reinforce the dumb-blond stereotype by making anti-war and anti-Bush statements she would not have had the courage to make in Texas or Nashville.

7. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon for whining when the National Baseball Hall of Fame wanted to preserve the purity of baseball’s anniversary celebration by keeping the focus on the Grand Old Game rather than the politics of the Hollywood Left.

6. Tie: Bill Clinton whose “sexual” preoccupations put us behind the anti-terrorism eight ball to begin with and to false documentary film-maker, Michael Moore, whose hatred for capitalism influences everything he says and does and to CBS-TV’s closet-pacifist, Andy Rooney, who said it was wrong for us to try to liberate the Iraqi people.

5. Former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, for accepting $400,000 funneled from the Saddam regime so he could make a film denying Saddam’s illegal weapons programs.

4. Peter Arnett who, even after being fired by both CNN and MSNBC for false reporting, continued to flack for Saddam and Baghdad Bob.

3. Janeane Garofalo for welching on her promise that, if her anti-war predictions proved wrong, “she would crawl on her knees on cut glass to deliver fruit cake and roses to the White House.”

2. Eason Jordan and CNN for suppressing what they knew about Saddam’s brutality in exchange for a 12-year lease on their office right next door to that of Baghdad Bob.

1. Tie: Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle for painting the Democrat Party into a corner from which it cannot emerge victorious unless America suffers another 9/11 attack, loses the war against terrorism and our economy remains stagnant.

Each day, as more and more of Saddam’s henchmen either surrender or are captured, Coalition forces are increasingly buried in an avalanche of evidence of: Saddam’s brutality, of weapons of mass destruction, of the duplicity of France and Russia, of the connection between Saddam and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and of how the UN’s Oil for Food Program was actually an Oil for Palaces Program and a source of increased income for Kofi Annan and other high-ranking UN officials.

Overtime, this evidence will mount to the point that the world will have indisputable proof of the need for Operation Iraqi Freedom. But, other than Andy Rooney and General McCaffrey (they already confessed to being wrong), don’t hold your breath waiting for any of our other award winners to utter the words: Mea Culpa.

William Hamilton, is a nationally syndicated columnist and featured commentator for USA Today.

©2003. William Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com