Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, October 6, 2018

OPINION

B3

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 6, 2018 

TOM PURCELL


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JOKES ABOUND, BUT 
POLITICAL DIVIDE NO 
LAUGHING MATTER

With all the vitriol in our politics - with all the disagreement 
that is tearing our country apart - we could all use some 
levity about now.

 Here’s one joke I think we can all agree with:

 A man wearing a ski mask jumped into the path of a well-dressed man and 
stuck a gun against his ribs.

 “Give me your money,” said the mugger.

 “You can’t do this,” said the well-dressed man. “I’m a U.S. congressman!”

 “In that case,” said the mugger, “give me MY money!”

 Being a parent is more challenging than ever. We live in a time when parents 
must censor C-SPAN! 

 Which reminds me of the one about the father who used the never-ending 
shenanigans in Washington to teach his son an important lesson. 

 “Son, you should never steal, lie or cheat.”

 “Why, Dad?”

 “Because the government hates competition!”

 The U.S. Senate is agitating millions of Americans. The allegedly august body of 
distinguished minds is supposed to give thoughtful pause to our political process 
- but is giving us a Jerry Springer show instead.

 That’s why the words of legendary humorist Will Rogers are truer today than 
when he spoke them during the Great Depression:

 “The Senate just sits and waits till they find out what the president wants, so they 
know how to vote against him.”

 “About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and 
closes with an investigation.”

 “Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement and 
discouragement.”

 With our senators being held in such low regard, this joke will resonate with 
many:

 A minister goes to a barbershop on Capitol Hill. The barber, thanking him for 
his service, says “No charge.” The next morning, the barber finds a thank-you note 
from the minister.

 A few days later a police officer gets his hair cut. The barber, thanking the officer 
for his service, says “No charge.” The next morning, the barber finds a thank-you 
note from the police officer. 

 A few days after that, a senator gets his hair cut. The barber, thanking the 
senator for his service, says “No charge.” The next morning, as he arrives at his 
shop, a dozen senators are waiting on the stoop.”

 Public discourse is suffering in our country right now - one could argue it is 
non-existent, which is a dangerous turn for our country. 

 According to dictionary.com, “discourse” is “communication of thought by 
words; talk; conversation.”

 Thoughtful conversation is how we arrive at political consensus - how we vote 
for political leaders, make our laws, pick our judges. 

 Thoughtful conversation - not shouting and name-calling - is the only way to 
iron out disagreements in both our personal and public lives.

 Thoughtful conversation - thoughtful public discourse - is the bedrock of an 
orderly, well-functioning republic. 

 God knows we’re short on thoughtful conversation at this moment - at our own 
peril.

 To that end, I hope we can all agree on this one:

 A couple was touring the capitol in Washington, and the guide pointed out a 
tall, benevolent gentleman as the congressional chaplain. The lady asked, “What 
does the chaplain do? Does he pray for the Senate or House?” 

 “No,” said the tour guide. “He gets up, looks at both houses of Congress, then 
prays for the country!”

-

Copyright 2018 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s 
Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-
Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons 
Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@
cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com.


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

DICK POLMAN

MICHAEL REAGAN

 
KAVANAUGH AND THE 
PRESIDENT’S BIG MOUTH

The Kavanaugh Nightmare is almost over.

 For almost three weeks Judge Brett Kavanaugh - a good father, 
a good man, a brilliant conservative legal jurist - has had his 
reputation permanently trashed and dragged through the mud by 
Democrats and their willing accomplices in the liberal media.

 No political charge or fake allegation was too slimy for the Democrats, who were 
never going to vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

 They were interested only in destroying his life and keeping the Supreme Court’s 
ninth seat open until they got back in power in the Senate.

 Kavanaugh is lucky he’s a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 
because if he doesn’t make it on to the U.S. Supreme Court, he probably won’t be able to 
get another job.

 Thanks to the Democrat hit-men and women, he won’t even be allowed to coach his 
daughters’ basketball team.

 The Democrats have presented the whole country with a prime-time example of how 
their politics of personal destruction works.

 Anything wrong you ever said, wrote or did all the way back to grade school is now 
eligible for a public smearing by the Democrats and the liberal media.

 After what happened to Kavanaugh, why would any conservative ever want to be 
appointed to anything?

 I’ve lied in my lifetime. Is my life going to be ruined?

I kissed Connie Frieberg in my backyard. She was 8-years-old and I was 8-years-old.

What does that mean today under the Democrats’ new rules? Was that a sexual assault?

I also confess that I drank beer in high school, went to boy-girl parties and played 
drinking games in college.

 Those things have been a rite of passage for American boys - and girls - forever. 

But if you’re a Republican, the Democrats have now redefined them as crimes or proof 
that deep-down you are a bad adult. 

 I feel very sorry for Judge Kavanaugh and his family and the hell the Democrats put 
them through.

 It’s a shameful chapter in American politics that made what happened to Judge Robert 
Bork and Clarence Thomas look like a PTA meeting.

 Democrats were morally and politically wrong for smearing Kavanaugh as a serial 
rapist and a teen-age drunk.

 But President Trump was equally as wrong for making fun of Kavanaugh’s accuser, 
professor Christine Blasey Ford, at a rally in West Virginia this week.

 Whether or not Ford was telling the truth about being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh 
in high school, it was not up to the president to publicly knock her.

 It was also not very smart.

 A lot of people in this world have been sexually assaulted or raped, both male and 
female, and many of them were offended when President Trump mocked Ford.

I hope he didn’t seriously offend any Republican senators – especially moderates Susan 
Collins, Lisa Murkowski or flaky Jeff Flake.

 At the time I’m writing this, no one knows how that trio is going to vote. 

If Kavanaugh makes it to the Supreme Court, he should thank God and Senator Lindsay 
Graham.

 But if he loses by a vote, he should blame President Trump - simply because, per usual, 
he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

-

 

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, 
a political consultant, and the author of “Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, 
Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan.” He is the founder of the email service reagan.com 
and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com 
and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @
reaganworld on Twitter. 

 Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For 
info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com.

THERE’S ONE BIG LOSER IN 
THE KAVANAUGH FIGHT

As we sift the mounting wreckage of the Brett Kavanaugh 
nomination, what happened in 1992 seems quite pertinent.

That year, when the U.S, Supreme Court upheld Roe v. Wade, three 
of the majority justices were candidly concerned that Americans 
angered by the ruling might lose faith in the nation’s top judicial 
institution. They wrote that “the court’s legitimacy depends on making legally principled 
decisions under circumstances in which their principled character is sufficiently plausible 
to the nation.”

Ponder those words, then ask yourself whether many Americans will view the high court 
as legitimate, as having a “principled character” if a credibly accused sexual assailant, a 
Trumpian partisan who rails about conspiracies plotted by “the Clintons,” is ultimately 
awarded with a lifetime appointment. And the reverse is true as well. As yourself whether 
many Americans – on the flip side of the ideological divide – will view the high court as 
legitimate if (in their view) a stellar conservative candidate is ultimately denied a lifetime 
appointment thanks to the feminists in cahoots with the Democrats.

It’s obvious by now that Donald Trump has done great damage to a number of institutions, 
and it’s no surprise that he would wreak havoc on the Supreme Court by nominating a 
poster child for white male grievance. Still, some nuance is necessary. The electorate has 
been grievously polarized for more than generation, and the Supreme Court’s perceived 
legitimacy has suffered as a result. Trump and his Senate enablers are merely making things 
worse.

The public mood was relatively sedate back in 1992, when the aforementioned trio of justices 
– Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, and Anthony Kennedy – fretted about legitimacy. 
The public mood was far more tempestuous in December 2000, when five Republican 
appointees stopped the Florida recount and awarded the presidency to the popular-vote 
loser, George W. Bush. Much was written that winter about whether the court had dealt a 
major blow to its legitimacy; indeed, Republican appointee John Paul Stevens warned in his 
dissenting opinion that the real loser in the ruling was “the nation’s confidence in the (court) 
as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.” Confidence in the court soared that winter 
among grassroots Republicans, but plummeted elsewhere in the electorate.

In 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts was reportedly so sensitized about public perception 
of the court that he switched his thumbs-down vote on Obamacare, believing that a 6-3 
majority would convey more legitimacy. Today, in retrospect, given all that has happened 
since, his gesture on Obamacare looks downright enlightened.

Here’s what has happened since: After Antonin Scalia’s death opened a seat, Senate 
Republicans refused to even schedule a hearing for Obama nominee Merrick Garland, 
holding the seat open for nearly all of 2016, claiming that they wanted to let “the people” 
decide how the seat should be filled. This was naked partisan politics, an unprecedented act 
of obstruction. 

“The people” responded on Election Day by electing a president who won nearly three 
million fewer votes than his opponent. Then came Neil Gorsuch, who took Garland’s 
rightful seat. Then came a hue and cry about the tainted image of the court. Russ Feingold, 
a former Democratic senator and Judiciary Committee member, warned before Gorsuch’s 
ascent that his confirmation would set “a dangerous precedent from which the legitimacy of 
our highest court might never recover.”

Then came the unexpected retirement of Anthony Kennedy; his announcement, this past 
June, conveniently maximized the prospects of a successor being confirmed by a Republican 
Senate – urgent timing, given the possibility that Democrats could capture the Senate in 
November.

That brings us to Kavanaugh, who’s now the subject of an eleventh-hour FBI probe that may 
or may not be sufficiently comprehensive. If a narrow FBI probe provides sufficient cover for 
the GOP’s fence-sitters to vote Yes, that result could sow more hostility toward the court and 
its future rulings. Although, of course, the MAGA faction would be delighted.

To quote a fellow political analyst, David Wasserman: “A broken Senate will eventually 
produce a SCOTUS viewed by many as illegitimate.” The optimists among us would 
contend that our institutions are strong enough to weather any storm, and that this too 
shall pass. Maybe. But all we can hear right now is the thunder. As the comic team of Laurel 
and Hardy would probably say to Trump and his Senate minions, “What a fine mess you’ve 
gotten us into now.”

-

 Copyright 2018 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper 
syndicate.

 Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a “Writer in 
Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.

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