»  Radio Derb — Transcript

01 — Intro.     Well, there goes another week swirling down the plug hole, NRO fans, and here is another Radio Derb to put it all in perspective for you: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Let's start with the bad news.

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The only people permitted to serve in that government, or to elect it, will be people of the Hawaiian race. The House Republican leader, Representative John Boehner of Ohio, protested the passing of this bill saying, quote: "Granting broad government powers to an exclusive group based on race is simply unconstitutional." End quote.

Well, sorry, boss, but you're wrong. We've been granting such powers to Indian tribes for over a century, and a tribe is just a minor race defined by common ancestry. That's what race is: common ancestry. If we can do it for Indians, why not For Hawaiians? That in fact is exactly the argument put forward by the bill's supporters.

Of course, we might have a sudden rush of collective national common sense and declare that all legal distinctions among U.S. citizens based on their ancestry are unconstitutional. [Laughter.] Yeah, right. That's going to happen — not. Where would we put all the casinos? And what would we do with all the racial head counters, all the chief diversity officers and affirmative action enforcers and equal opportunity bureaucrats?

No, let's just keep things headed in the direction they're headed: towards a comprehensively racialized society with the complete system of internal passports on which every citizen's race is properly recorded.

Then we shall need governing bodies and tribal councils for all the races, not just Hawaiians and Indians, but also for blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, South Asians, Arabs, Jews, mestizos and Pacific Islanders.

Did I leave anybody out? I don't think so. Colorblind society? Who wants that?

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Rudy Giuliani performed the biggest, most shameless flip-flop in the campaign so far, declaring his support for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Rudy explained lamely that since his own beloved Yankees aren't in the Series, he at least wants to support the American League team. What, even if it's the Red Sox, Rudy? The Red Sox? Come on!

Striking while the iron is hot, Pat Buchanan wrote a column saying that the GOP will lose its soul if it nominates Rudy. I love Pat and I enjoy his books, but if he's the soul of the Republican Party, it's a mighty small soul. Pat got zero point four percent of the vote last time he ran.

John McCain, speaking to employees at a gun factory he was visiting, promised them he'd, quote, "bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell and shoot him with one of your products." Big Talk, John; but if you've figured out a way to comb through the Hindu Kush for jihadis without bringing down the Pakistan government, please share it with us.

Fred Thompson has pushed way out ahead on immigration issues, promising to make English the official U.S. language and to end chain migration — that is, so that people who've settled here can bring in a spouse and their minor children, but not their whole 800-member extended family.

Mike Huckabee went to the mountain and saw the promised land. Well, actually he went to the Values Voters conference and saw himself placed second behind Mitt Romney in a straw poll.

Mitt Romney himself managed to refer to Barack Obama as "Osama" no less than twice in a single speech. I think that's a record. Why don't you just call him "Hussein," guys?

Hussein himself got his knickers in a twist by taking on a black gospel singer who is popular with black evangelicals, a constituency Obama wants, but unpopular with homosexuals, another constituency he wants. Hussein squared the circle by having a homosexual minister open the gospel concerts he's staging at which the anti-homosexual singer will be singing.

John Edwards has visited every one of Iowa's 99 counties without getting his hair mussed.

Joe Biden caused shock and outrage to sensitive people everywhere by suggesting that the reason Washington, D.C. schools are so terrible is that so many of the students are black. Cold Spring Harbor lab announced they would not be offering Senator Biden a job.

Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO, according to Shirley MacLaine; and hey, you can't get a more reliable witness than that.

Anybody else? [Hillary cackling.] Oh yeah. Well, I was having fun up to that point.

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Louisiana, you know, is famous for politicians who are … what's the right word here? … colorful. Colorful politicians. Not colored, colorful.

Bobby Jindal is in fact somewhat colored, as it happens. He comes from a family of Punjabi immigrants, but he's promised he won't be color-ful.

Quote from Bobby:

If I go down as one of the more boring but effective governors, I'll take that as a great compliment. Our people don't want to be amused by our politics anymore. We don't want to be entertained.

End quote.

So there you are: a politician who promises to be boring. At this point I'd gladly trade my state governor for Louisiana's, and there's a thing I never thought I'd hear myself say.

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Topic Number One: The so called DREAM Act — which would have given a free college education, a late model Lexus, honorary country club membership, and a lifetime supply of Cheezits to all undocumented immigrants — failed to pass the Senate.

Why? Why would anyone object to such an obviously noble and just measure, of such inestimable benefit to our country — which, as we all know, would be at the economic level of Burkina Faso if not for these wonderful people coming in to do our drudge work?

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin knows why, quote: "Switchboards light up, the hate starts spewing, and people get concerned."

What is it with these "sp—" words? Why does hate always "spew" or "spout" or "spill" or "spit"? Can't it just flow, stream, issue, pour, surge, run, course, rush, gush, or flush? Doesn't it ever just trickle, dribble, drip, seep, percolate, or lixiviate? Wait: Is there any danger it might cataract, cascade, inundate, engulf, swamp, overwhelm, flood, or deluge?

What is it about hate that its emergence can only be described with "sp—" words? Perhaps we should ask the governor of my home state, Eliot Spitzer.

And having mentioned our Governor, we move to Topic Two. How's he doing with his plan to hand out state driver's licenses to illegals? Not too spiffy, from the look of things. Even state Republicans have now figured out that the real purpose of Spitzer's specious splan … sorry, plan, is to get these people on the electoral roll so they'll all vote Democrat.

Republicans in the state legislature are threatening a lawsuit against the Governor and county clerks all over the state are refusing to issue these spurious licenses. Here's one such, Saratoga County Clerk Kathleen Marchione. Quote: "If I aid or abet an illegal immigrant, I am committing a felony, and I will not do that." End quote.

Spouted Spitzer splenetically: "The politics of fear and selfishness has replaced the politics of common sense and responsibility." Yeah, well.

On to Topic Three. There's a story here from the disaster relief effort in San Diego. Quote:

Six undocumented Mexican immigrants were arrested today by U.S. Border Patrol agents at Qualcomm Stadium after a report that they were stealing food and water meant for evacuees.

San Diego police responded to a call about alleged theft from the evacuation center and encountered six people in a van who didn't speak English and didn't have California driver's licenses. The police officers called the Border Patrol, who arrived at the stadium and made the arrests.

End quote.

That story is 24 hours old as I speak and I still haven't seen any report of the Justice Department launching a racial profiling inquiry. Seems obvious to me that these hardworking immigrants were treated unjustly.

Why didn't the cops just put a call through to Governor Eliot Spitzer and have him give them New York State driver's licenses? Problem solved!

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That is to say:

• the Iraqi government is no closer to being functional than it ever was;
• the Iraqi army is totally reliant on U.S. equipment and transport, as well as being addled by desertions, corruption, and sectarianism;
• nobody has a clue how we're ever going to get out of there;
• the Brits have given up on Bazra and handed it over to Shiite militia gangs;
• The Turks are getting ready to launch raids across the northern border;
• seventy percent of Iraqi homes lack adequate water supply;
• oil production is still at a trickle; and
• most of the country's educated middle class is now living abroad.

The good news is, the killings of both Iraqis and Americans are way down, and al-Qaeda is on the ropes in Iraq, although according to a U.S. National Intelligence estimate, they're still going strong in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

All the fine talk of three or four years ago about democracy in Iraq looks pretty silly now, but at least the place is less of an abattoir than it was six months ago.

Everybody, including all the Democratic Presidential candidates — except I think Dennis Kucinich — seems to be assuming that we'll have to stay in Iraq for several more years. Whether the U.S. public will go along with that remains to be seen; but in the meantime, low death tolls among our servicepeople are surely better than high ones.

Let's be thankful for small mercies: thankful in this particular case to General Petraeus and his troops, who may yet salvage something from a stupid situation our politicians ought never have gotten us into.

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Quote from the BBC news service.

The idea was born when two Zagreb artists …

Zagreb, that's a city in Croatia.

… two Zagreb artists Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić split up and wanted to do something creative with the pain they were feeling. The artists decided to collect the objects left over from their relationship and put them on display, and they asked their friends to do the same.

One woman donated an axe and described chopping up the furniture of her cheating female lover, quote within the quote: "The more her room filled up with chopped-up furniture, the more I started to feel better. Two weeks after she was kicked out, she came to take the furniture. It was all neatly arranged into small heaps and fragments of wood." End quote.

End quote.

The Museum of Broken Relationships. It figures that the idea would originate in the fragments of the old Yugoslavia. That was a broken relationship, for sure.

It's not hard to think of other venues where the museum might set up its exhibits. Baghdad, perhaps; or the Turkish embassy in Washington. How about around the Republican booths at the Value Voters convention?

Or how about wherever it is that today's pro-illegal immigration Democratic Party meets ordinary American workers? Assuming that it still does.

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Item:  The Travelodge chain of budget motels has done a little research on sleepwalking in their establishments. They found there had been more than four hundred cases in the past year, most of them men and many naked.

So watch out, travelers! You get late to your motel, you're standing there at the desk checking in, and a guy strolls passed in his birthday suit. This could be very disconcerting, especially if you just flew in from Minneapolis and had an unwelcome encounter with Larry Craig in the airport men's room there.

I tell you, this country is getting weird.

A sleepwalking story does at least give me an excuse to play you a little Bellini, though. Here is a lady in the middle of a sleepwalk. If the guy sleepwalking in the buff through your Travelodge lobby can deliver anything as good as this, my advice would be just sit down and enjoy it.

[Clip of Maria Callas singing "Ah, non credea mirarti" from Bellini's La sonnambula.]

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Item:  The space shuttle Discovery was launched into orbit on yet another essential mission to take new supplies to the International Space Station, which exists so that the shuttle will have someplace to take supplies to.

Fortunately, all went well and there were no casualties on this launch … unless you count around five hundred million of your tax dollars.

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Item:  Here's a headline that caught my eye: Wild Turkeys Invade Massachusets Cities and Towns.

Wait a minute, there. The Massachusetts state primaries don't happen until March 4th. Shouldn't all those turkeys be invading Iowa and New Hampshire?

I just can't keep up with politics

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Item:  And yes, speaking of Turkey, Turkey the country is on the warpath. Kurdish terrorist based in Iraq have been killing people and breaking things in Turkey. The Turks are mad as hell and threatening to invade northern Iraq.

So: wild turkeys are invading Massachusetts and mad Turks are invading Iraq.

I can't figure it out in the Middle East either. Aren't the Kurds supposed to be the good Iraqis — the ones who like us, or at any rate don't hate us? It turns out that even the good Iraqis have a terrorist wing.

Oh — wing, drumstick, whatever. Sorry, my thoughts are turning towards Thanksgiving. Now that's what turkeys are good for.

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Item:  The United Nations came out with a report on the state of the world, the natural world that is. It's a great report: five hundred and seventy-two pages of unalleviated gloom and doom. I read the whole thing and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There's a world water crisis: We're going to run out of water any day now. All sorts of species are under threat. Pollution's out of control. We're heading for major energy shortages. The world's food supply may run out, with fish stocks disappearing first.

And of course there's climate change to keep worrying about. You are worrying about it, aren't you, listeners? Good. Well, here's all these other things to worry about, according to the U.N.

It's just as I keep telling you: We are doomed, doomed.

Time for a drink. [Sound of bottle being uncorked, liquid pouring.] Cheers!

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I know, I know: where oil goes, gas won't be far behind. Psychologically, though, eliminating the word "oil" from my household finances will make me feel better.

Until next week, then, this is John Derbyshire signing off for Radio Derb.

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