December 30, 2002 -

RAUCOUS RIGHTWINGGERY!

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Liberalism is (it is said) dead. And there's more Patty.

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Now, the details...

NEW YORK -- The mighty New Dork Times rang in the New Year with a long story on Page One, whining that America's left wing has been "outflanked" and "outgunned" by a few evil conservative radio and television personalities and a small newspaper. If one believes the Times, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel and the Washington Times have taken over. (Many of us who read the silly piece were afraid we had slept from New Year's Eve until April Fool's Day.) In a related development, Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said it might be neat if Osama bin Laden had his own network radio show.

LONDON -- The Brit's Channel 4 is defending its show, in which a Chinese "performance artist" eats a dead baby. Channel 4 says the infant-gobbling is part of a "thought-provoking film about extreme art in China." In Seattle, Sen. Patty Murray said she is both pro-abortion and pro-thought. Ms. Murray told a group of high-school students there is reason to believe Osama bin Laden has produced tasty babies while the U.S.A. has been manufacturing second-rate dog food. Murray's staff quickly issued a news release, in which the Senator said babies taste like crap and she prefers sushi.

SEATTLE -- The Patty Murray flappola reminds me, somehow, of the Special Olympics. Not that Patty's admiration of Osama bin Laden is noble or uplifting, but her fellows in the American brain-impairment community have rallied to her in her continuing cognitive problems. (In case you were out of touch while committing terrorist acts somewhere last month, you might have missed the Washington Democratic senator's observation that many Muslims love bin Laden because he builds roads, schools, hospitals and day-care centers.) Leftie media people in Washington State have rallied behind Murray. The latest was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which somehow concluded that it was gutsy of brain-dead Patty to "raise an important question about the popularity of Osama bin Laden in some parts of the world." However, there is a linguistic lesson to be learned here. I had never thought of it before, but "Post-Intelligencer" obviously means "after wisdom."

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina -- Many newspaper editorial pages have been twisting themselves into pretzels to defend the indefensible remarks of Sen. Patty Murray. Thus it's possible that the chin-rubbers in Big Media were simply too busy with brain-dead Patty to defend Doug Marlette, the Tallahassee Democrat's political cartoonist. Marlette produced a 'toon spoofing the ridiculous "What Would Jesus Drive" with an evil-looking Arab fellow at the wheel of a Ryder truck, carrying an atomic missile. His chicken-livered editors at the Democrat wouldn't run the cartoon (What Would Mohammed Drive?), but it did earn Marlette a "fatwa" from some peace-loving Muslims. Sen. Murray issued a statement saying bin Laden's cartoons are more meaningful than Marlette's.

ATLANTA -- From Georgia State University comes the story of Kanzi, a pygmy chimpanzee who has come up with four distinct sounds for "banana," "juice," "grapes" and "yes." Ape experts are astonished, since there was no indication until now that chimps could produce a simple form of speech. Kanzi's keepers are uncertain whether they will keep him in language training or send him to Washington State to run for the U.S. Senate.

NEW YORK -- Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, an admirer of Fidel Castro, has gone from defending a draft dodger to proposing a universal military draft. Rangel, of course, wants the draft about as much as his buddy, Bill Clinton, lusts for a monogamous marriage. Rangel said the prospect of a draft would make Congress less likely to support a war.

RALEIGH, North Carolina -- Sen. John Edwards announced he will run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. The boyish Edwards had to delay his pronouncement of candidacy because his mother wouldn't let his cross the street.

NASHVILLE -- In what apparently was the worst decision of Jerry Williams Jr.'s 25 years, he tried to carjack a New Ford Explorer driven by Billy John Brown, a 50-year-old who happens to have a permit to carry his .44-caliber Taurus. Brown said Williams and another man jumped into the vehicle. Williams told him to drive and threatened to shoot him. Brown's Taurus ended the conversation. Nashville police are treating the shooting as justified, prosecutors will examine it and a gun-rights group says Billy John Brown deserves a citation for good citizenship.

CRAWFORD, Texas -- The few Clinton holdovers in the George W. Bush security team were panicked when a huge storm system, with possible tornadoes, moved across Central Texas and the Texas White House. "There was a rumor that the storm system was a really big blow and that the Weather Service had named it Monica," said Quentin Q. Quibbler, a Secret Service driver.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: If liberal media is dead, does that explain why CNN stinks?