Welcome to a recurring feature when I simply can’t pick one issue to spread over one full column—a checklist of things we’ve learned in the past few days, whether uplifting or discouraging.
1. We’ve learned that the fog of mystery surrounding Benghazi will not clear anytime soon. With key players under pressure not to speak to investigators, a litany of anonymous voices now adds to a disturbing chorus telling of dropped balls and missed opportunities in the aftermath of an attack this administration wants us all to forget.
Their strategy is not just to suppress the truth, but to demonize anyone searching for it.
2. We’ve learned that if you are an aging NBA player scoring about two points per game, it is a great career move to announce your homosexuality. Jason Collins instantly became the most loved athlete in America, garnering support from all corners and a go-get-‘em phone call from President Obama.
His career went from near-certain death to a celebratory exercise of speculation, with eager anticipation over which team will grab a brass ring of history by signing him.
While many jumped to the ridiculous length of comparing this to Jackie Robinson’s breakage of baseball’s color barrier, Collins himself maintained some humility. “It’s not about being gay,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “it’s about basketball.”
Maybe it will be someday, when the occasional gay athlete becomes more common and thus the subject of far less breathless fawning.
3. We have learned that there are a lot of people eager to pave the way toward sexually active middle schoolers.
The absurd notion of making Plan B One-Step available on demand for 15-year-olds shows that we are approaching complete surrender on the old way of stopping teen pregnancy-- the effective tradition of “My parents will kill me.”
I know that if we are going to have X number of sexually active ninth-graders, it is best if they do not get pregnant. But easy availability of so-called “emergency contraception” will surely boost the number of adolescents pushing the sexual envelope.
And how precisely does a young lady prove she is 15? No driver’s license yet, and no parental voucher since avoiding pesky scrutiny from Mom and Dad seems to be the point here. Look for more than a few 13- and 14-year-olds to be popping this stuff in no time.
4. We know that government and the media are filled with people organically unable to say the words “radical Islam” and unable to grasp its dangers.
The Boston Marathon bombings are brutal proof that the 9/11 terrorists have countless brethren eager to follow in their footsteps. The venues and death tolls will change, but the motivation is always the same: kill the innocent to give glory to Allah.
We should always go to the proper lengths to make clear that we all know that there are Muslims the world over-- especially in America-- who renounce such violence.
But to deny the very existence of the murderous wing of the Islamic faith is to endanger Americans of every religion.
5. We have learned that some people just like to riot. Whether in Chicago in 1968 or South Central Los Angeles in 1992 or various other locations through the years, people who choose to make a point by hurting people and breaking things will always get a reputational free pass from the media.
Old hippies currently managing news operations still wistfully recall the 1960s riots, sparked by Vietnam or racial unrest.
The dominant media culture wasted a lot of time and print space stupidly asking what “motivated” rioters after the Rodney King verdicts. (The answer: they were really mad and really out of control.)
This week, the city was Seattle, and the occasion was the big May 1 commie holiday that gave plenty of idle nihilist malcontents a way to fill a day.
This latest example of hooliganism did indeed get covered, but rest assured if Tea Partiers had gone on this kind of rampage, the team coverage would still be on and congressional hearings scheduled.
6. And finally, speaking of congressional hearings, we have learned that the left cannot wait to hang the death toll from the Texas fertilizer plant explosion around the neck of Governor Rick Perry.
First, a disgusting Sacramento Bee editorial cartoon showed Perry praising his state’s “booming” businesses in one panel, and the explosion in the next.
Now comes California Senator Barbara Boxer, ready to stack a hearing with testimony that will suggest that the explosion would not have happened if my state of Texas had the suffocating level of overregulation that is currently chasing business from her state.
Enjoy the weekend, more lessons are always on the way.