January 27, 2012
King Features Column
(As usual, the arrangement withn the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)
FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019
CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
BOB FRANKEN
FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, JAN. 20, 2012
WAR CRIMES PERSPECTIVE
BY BOB FRANKEN
I don’t know if the same signs are in every Whole Foods, but there are several that adorn the walls of my neighborhood store. Probably the most cloying one extols the corporation’s support of The Animal Compassion Foundation for “raising animals naturally and humanely.” “In short, we believe,” it goes on, “that through the work of the foundation, we can improve the lives of farm animals.”
Now, ain’t that nice? Of course, they did leave off a line: “THEN WE SLAUGHTER THEM!!!”
It brings to mind all the moralistic hand-wringing over those U.S. Marines who made the mistake of being photographed as they urinated on the bodies of apparent Taliban fighters the Marines seem to have killed before they were killed.
Inevitably, the pictures hit the Internet, and just as inevitably, U.S. officials of the highest rank, the secretaries of state and defense among them, expressed their outrage: “Utterly deplorable,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; “inconsistent with American values,” added Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Panetta promised appropriate punishment for this violation of the international laws of war prohibiting “abuse of corpses.” Tellingly, military officials also were pondering charges against those who took the pictures. It’s not nice to embarrass the United States.
Nobody seemed to state the obvious, which was that the worst mistreatment of the dead was making them dead in the first place. Nobody spoke up for the Marines who were cast in that role. Nobody, that is, but that noted wise man Rick Perry.
Yes, that may have been a tad sarcastic, considering that Perry has since decided to pack it in and go lick his own wounds, but he was one of the few voices when he went on a Sunday gabfest to bemoan the “over-the-top rhetoric” about the Marines’ actions, saying they should be reprimanded and not punished since, “Obviously, 18- and 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often. And that’s what’s occurred here.”
What occurred there in Afghanistan was depraved and ghoulish, but also understandable when you remember that these young men have been fighting for their lives for however many months and were probably in a rage about the friends they have lost in hostilities that are hard to understand.
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January 26, 2012
Revving it Up Again
I take my act to Rev. Al Sharpton's show again tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00, Eastern hour on MSNBC
January 23, 2012
Tonight's MSNBC Gig
I'm on with the Rev tonight (Monday) during the 6:00 PM, Eastern hour. Whatever will we discuss? (Hint: It's an NBC GOP debate later this evening.
King Features Colu,m
(As you can see this is somewhat dated. The arrangement with syndicators means this appears here about a week after its newspaper release)
FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019
CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
BOB FRANKEN
FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 17, 2012
THE END OF HUNTSMAN’S HUNT
BY BOB FRANKEN
The appropriate observation about the latest from the world of politics is downright Orwellian: Sanity is Insanity. How else would we describe Jon Huntsman’s belief that he could succeed by taking the middle of the road, using rational ideas against competition that is way out there, spouting extremist babble that is only sometimes coherent.
Happily for Huntsman, he seems to have regained his connection to reality by pulling out of the race. Now he can reconcile those fantasies where he assumed he ever had a chance. Obviously, he had some moments when it occurred to him that this wasn’t quite right; the time, for instance, when he tweeted “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
OK, Jon. You were crazy. You want evidence? How about when you uttered, “I don’t think you need to run down somebody’s reputation in order to run for the office of president”? Of course you do, Jon. What would possess you to think otherwise? It was that kind of thinking that put you so far down in the South Carolina polls ... way down. Even Stephen Colbert was ahead of you, and his participation is a big joke.
Of course, “big joke” might describe the candidacies of those still in the running. Surely when Mitt Romney declared that “Corporations are people,” he was making a funny. Or when Rick Santorum compared gay relationships to bestiality, he couldn’t have been serious. Could he? Actually, someone thinks so, since he got that endorsement from evangelicals.
We don’t even need to list all the wild rantings of Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. First of all, there isn’t enough space, and besides, they would be hard to believe outside the election loony bin. As Rick Perry said, “Oops.” By the way, Perry is still strutting his stuff.
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