HAVE YOU NO SHAME, SIR?

"Have you no shame, Sir?" Those words by one brave soul started the downfall of the demagogue, Senator Joseph McCarthy, in a United States Senate hearing in the 1950's. This "emperor has no clothes" moment brought down the curtain on two years of demagoguery and inflammatory statements by McCarthy that were unchecked and un-refuted by almost all in government due to their fear of his tongue. For two years there were no brave men in government to take a principled stand and challenge a liar and buffoon. But when one brave man finally challenged the misrepresentations the house of cards collapsed and then everyone in government, Senators, Representatives and the President jumped on the bandwagon and censured McCarthy.

Today when we have ego triumphing over patriotism, we are anxiously awaiting a brave soul to stand up to Congress, either chamber, and again challenge "have you no shame, Sir?" Daily we are exposed to Congresspersons , Senators and Representatives, who are exposing the United States to mortal peril for partisan political gain. In their rush for Photo-Ops, microphones and face times in TV sound bites to promote themselves, their agendas and political ambitions , they are willing to be the 5th column for al Qaeda intelligence operations in America. Has no one the courage to tell them "enough?"

It is astounding to see Congresspersons holding forth daily that the interception of al Qaeda phone conversations was a "threat" to Americans and not a protection of our lives and society. It is idiocy to believe that al Qaeda is just calling in for pizza delivery or checking Super Bowl scores. Through their efforts al Qaeda has been warned and advised how to circumvent our intelligence operations. Several weeks ago we had the spectacle of seeing the Democrat Minority leader, Senator Harry Reid, do a victory lap around a party meeting crowing that "I killed the Patriot Act!" All for cheap political gain at the cost of this nation’s safety.

The incredible leak of secret information to the New York Times to be used to embarrass the Bush administration seems to emanate from a U. S. Senator privy to top secret briefings. The name circulating on the Internet is that of Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller, now the subject of a Justice Department investigation. How strange that certain politicians demand that the administration keep them informed on all activities and plans, but trip over each other trying to be the first to reveal secrets to burnish their images with the mainstream media. Politics trumps principle.

Almost as unbelievable is the "catch and release" program advocated by many of these same Congresspersons. According to their theory, enemy combatants captured on the field of battle should not be considered prisoners of war but criminals entitled to a long list of rights and protections in the civil courts. The lunacy of calling witnesses from the battlefield to testify exactly how the "crime" was committed, providing "accused" with free lawyers and endless "appeals" escapes these witless wonders. Do they really believe in a special al Qaeda "Bill of Rights?" Perhaps not. Perhaps it is merely another way of embarrassing the administration and playing to their looney left political base. Pure crassness.

More than one observer has noted that the ravings of some Congresspersons provide the fodder for the videos, tapes and Fatwahs beamed back at the world from Osama bin Laden, in his Afghan cave and from Zarqawi in the alleys of Baghdad. Their words are virtually the same words and lies that dribbled from Congresspersons’ mouths only this time in Arabic. With so many similarities in phrasing, one wonders if Harry Reid sends his talking points to Osama or if Osama sends them to Harry.

Last week I heard someone remark that Jimmy Carter was the worst President of the Twentieth Century. I take umbrage. He certainly is the worst President of the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty First centuries. Unfortunately our perennial national embarrassment thrust his gray and fuzzy-thinking head into the national debate again this week. He helped turn the funeral of Coretta Scott King into a political spectacle with his diatribe against the war on terror, the Iraq war and the Bush Administration. Liberals like him, several years ago, turned the funeral for Senator Paul Wellstone into a political rally too. Not even the dead or safe from rant, distortion and bombast. Is our civil discourse now so debased that from now on we will have to listen to the unhinged declaim over graves?

Arguably Jimmy Carter is responsible for most of the terrorism that swirls through the world today. His incompetence in handling the Iranian Hostage Crisis was a green light to all terrorists that the United States was a "paper tiger" ripe to be goaded and gored and eventually toppled by Islamists. When the attack of 9/11 happened, bin Laden fully expected the United States to dither, wail and call a U.N. Security Council meeting for some serious finger wagging, just like Carter did in the Iranian crisis. Unfortunately, the muscular reaction by the Bush White House after this attack came too late to put the genie back into the bottle. Terrorists have had 15 years of plotting in the belief that we would meekly surrender. We see the Jimmy Carter approach in Europe today. In the Danish Cartoon flap, it is distressing to see most European governments trying to figure how to appease the Muslim extremists. They have even added Sensitivity Sessions to dithering as an answer. Ah, Jimmy Carter, what hath you wrought.

Safety rule #1 in Washington, D.C. is never get between some politicians and a camera. And it turns out that many of the politicians that put publicity ahead of national security are leaders of this pack. Think Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Leahy, Boxer, Feinstein and Rockefeller. A sample from the House would include McDermott, McKinney and Murtha. Someone needs to tell them there is a war on and it is not against the Administration but al Qaeda.

We again see the "ego trumps brains" scenario in the Major Media’s hysterical reaction to Vice President Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting companion. A tragic accident becomes Political Theater with the cameras and microphones of the self-absorbed Washington and New York Press Corps. The tragedy, to hear them tell it, is not the wounded man but the fact that they were not the first to be informed. They confuse and conflate their "right to know" as being identical with the "public’s right to know. Their egos have been wounded more seriously than the actual victim. Most media could hardly cover any breaking news for a week because they were so involved having a hissy fit of being slighted. Grow up; nobody cares.

If the phrase, "Have you no shame, Sir?" is too grandiloquent to be used by a Congressperson in 2006, maybe one of them could say, "You idiots, shut up and sit down!"