May 26, 2004 -

TERRIBLE TERROROGRAPHY!

---

This just in: Al Qaeda ain't quite dead yet.

---

Now, the details...

Associated Press reporter Curt Anderson has a big scoop. Here ‘tis. "U.S. officials have obtained new intelligence deemed highly credible indicating al-Qaida or other terrorists are in the United States and preparing to launch a major attack this summer, The Associated Press has learned." Somehow even people in Tow, Texas could have told Curt that al Qaeda has people in the United States. John Ashcroft's Justice Department busted a gaggle of them in the Buffalo, New York area more than a year ago. Curt could have looked it up. It was in all the papers and only an idiot – or Dennis Kucinich – might believe the Lackawanna cell was the only one around.

Comedian Bill Cosby is something of an enigma. He is wonderfully funny and has entertained Americans for several generations with his soft-spoken, family-friendly humor and acting ability. But reporters and show-biz people close to Cosby know The Private Cos as something of a racist jerk.

But Cosby put the race-hustlers back on their heels with his remarks at a Washington gala commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Cosby made invidious comparisons between the 1960s civil-rights pioneers and some modern African-Americans. He said: "These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around," adding: "The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics'."

He wasn't finished. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

And then he turned to criminal justice. "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, saying, 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

Cosby was immediately pilloried by the race industry as attacking all African-Americans. That, of course, wasn't what he had done and only an idiot would conclude he had.

Political correctness remains a huge problem for our military. Witness the velvet-glove treatment given Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-star dimbulb who commanded the military police brigade at the famous Abu Ghraib prison. If Janis were a male general, she would have seen The Book flying at her head. Instead, the Army has quietly suspended her from command and reassigned her to a stateside job where her incompetence can be contained.

By way of contrast, Specialist Jeremy Sivits, one of Karpinski's minions, got the maximum when he pleaded guilty to abusing our noble Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Sivits got busted to private, sentenced to a year in the slammer and will get a bad-conduct discharge.

In a command structure frightened by gender politics, military justice today is a bit like gonorrhea: a disease of the privates.

The Pew Research Center could have saved a lot of time and money just by reading newspapers and tuning in to the Big Lib television channels. But that would have diluted the statistics Pew spews in telling us that "liberals make up a disproportionate share of newsroom workers." Journalists don't like exposure of their frailties, so many try to hide by saying they are "moderates." (A journalistic moderate is a liberal hiding under deep cover). But Pew's figures for national news organizations show that 34 percent of journalists say they're liberal, while 7 percent admit to being conservative.

Pew's survey didn't reveal anything we didn't know, so we're waiting for the next one, which possibly will concentrate on establishing whether Jimmuh Carter is an idiot – or just an imbecile.

Let's raise a big Bronx cheer for Dallas, the heart of the Metromess. Dallas has successfully defended its title for the sixth straight year. That's to say that Big D again leads the country's largest cities in its overall crime rate. Big D defenders) contend that Dallas is safer than, say, Detroit, because the Dallas crime rate is swelled by burglaries and robberies, while Detroit has a higher rate of murder and rape. Well, yippeekiyo!

Interim Police Chief Randy Hampton says violent crime is trending downward. That reminds us of the rationale of former Washington Mayor/Crackhead Marion Barry, who observed that the District of Columbia crime rate wasn't all that bad if you took out the statistics for murder.

I had a sad moment this week. One of my yellow-dawg Democrat friends told me I am so hard on Democrats that she has stopped reading my column. I accept that lots of Democrats stop reading columns, but she isn't one of those. Those have to stop reading because their lips get tired.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Is Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski an incompetent, or just a bad Polish joke?