Category: National

It’s that deadline time again. And for too many of us that apparently means last second scrambling across the taxing terrain of deductions, receipts, extensions and reparations.

Yes, reparations. The slavery sort.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, nearly 80,000 returns were filed last year for more than $2.7 billion in bogus reparation refunds. The IRS is gearing up again, even though the U.S. tax code does not allow for such reparations. Never has.

The rash of reparations-for-slavery scams seems attributable to several factors.

Publicity, if not credibility, has been generated by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who has introduced legislation that would establish a commission to look into the institution of slavery and its repercussions. There’s also the Rev. Al Sharpton, a putative presidential candidate, who has given every indication that he’ll push for a reparations’ plank in the 2004 Democratic Platform.

Second, we now have a slave descendent suing three companies in federal court for a share of the profits those companies — Aetna Inc., FleetBoston Financial Corp., and CSX Corp. — allegedly gained via slavery. Moreover, other such suits are in the works, including one being pursued by celebrity trial lawyer Johnnie Cochran.

Third, reparations represent a predictable and malignant outgrowth of victimhood, the mentality as well as the industry, that is sustained by white guilt. President Bill Clinton apologized for slavery, but that was only the redress rehearsal. The ante necessarily gets upped from there.

Moreover, the reparations issue only reinforces a false and counterproductive premise. That is that black Americans can’t make it on their own in this country without playing the victim card for all it’s worth. That should be as patronizing as it is insulting.

Fourth is a concept older than slavery itself: something for nothing. The operative color is greed green for those enslaved by old-fashioned opportunism. In this case, trying to cash in an I.O.U. earned by somebody else in the 19th century.

But some of those who let Cochran and Harvard University Law Professor Charles Ogletree do their talking and rationalizing for them, may have to face an intriguing irony as well. According to the 1860 census, more than 6,000 blacks owned slaves, mostly Indians.

Any of those slave-owner descendents want to step forward and settle ancestral matters with certain native Americans before proceeding on with principled recompense for historical affronts? What’s more, anyone interested in pursuing those related to West African chiefs who sold their tribesmen to the European slave traders?

The U.S seems as unable as it is unwilling to get directly involved in a Middle East crisis that presages dire consequences for America itself. Ordering up a drive-by Zinni doesn’t cut it.

Perhaps this might.

Two countries — Egypt and Israel — that have a lot to say about whether the world turns toward Armageddon or toward a Cyprus-like solution keep raking it in from the U.S. Israel receives $3 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid, while Egypt’s take is $2 billion.

Perhaps Secretary of State Colin Powell could assume a role beyond rhetoric and brow knitting. Recall that he had no problem holding up $200 million in aid for Haiti until President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took steps to make that strategically unimportant, beleaguered country work better. Perhaps he should consider getting $5 billion dollars worth of leverage out of Egypt and Israel.

If we’re going to incur blame, wrath and more terrorist attacks, let’s at least not pay $5 billion for it.

Enough of the forensic folly that is the debate over racial, religious, ethnic and national profiling at U.S. airports. It’s like debating Hitler’s “final solution.” There is no other side.

What’s at stake — protecting lives and national security — is too important to have an opposing view. Especially when that viewpoint represents the see-all-evil “discrimination” credo of the political correctness crowd. They can save it for, say, university admittance where the worst result is blatant unfairness — not death and destruction.

But let’s revisit where we are.

Take these tests:

1) You’re queuing up for an international flight. The red head behind you has the map of Dublin on her face and the passport of Ireland in her purse. The blue-eyed, blond guy in front of you has a Norwegian passport. The young, swarthy guy in front of him carries a Saudi passport. A security official asks the young man from Medina to step aside for some additional questions.

The Saudi guy takes obvious umbrage at being singled out. His ultimate destination, he says, is Paris, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the Sorbonne. He says he’s a victim of ethnic and religious profiling, which is as insulting as it is humiliating.

Deep down, you say to yourself:

a) “Poor guy. This is unconscionable, discriminatory treatment. Just because he’s an Arab, doesn’t mean he’s a security risk. This is, in effect, ‘flying while Muslim.’ I don’t blame him for being incensed. He hasn’t done anything. Moreover, most Muslims are as repulsed by the atrocities of Sept. 11, as I am. Islam is a religion of peace. Its perversion led to 9/11. I’m embarrassed that this blatantly discriminatory procedure is carried out in the name of United States security and unprofiled, non-typecast passengers such as myself. I’m ashamed at this First Amendment mockery — and embarrassed by my complicity of silence. This is as wrong as ‘driving while black.'”

b) “Poor guy. But given all we know about who has declared war on America and the ethnic background and religious affiliation of all those who committed horrific acts with commercial airliners, this is an understandable and prudent move. Of course, if I were in his shoes, I might not like it either, but that isn’t the point. The point is that right now I wouldn’t like it one bit if the Saudi guy weren’t scrutinized more closely than non-Muslim passengers. It defies sense as well as security to do otherwise. When it comes to my own life, I can get pretty picky about doing everything reasonable and rational to ensure it. That includes profiling, a legitimate security tool. Ask the Israelis. Hell, ask any police chief in an unguarded moment of investigative candor. Statistical relevance remains germane. And, hey, it’s always easier to proffer a sincere apology than to send deepest condolences.

“And speaking of shoes, those high-topped sneakers don’t exactly complement that three-piece suit

Slave to greed: It’s not called “something for nothing,” of course, but that’s what the rash of reparations-for-slavery scams amounts to. Those growing legions of black taxpayers taken in by promises of reparation refunds are enslaved by nothing other than old-fashioned opportunism. The operative color here is greed green.

It’s also poetic justice for those trying to find another way to play the victim card — trying to cash in an I.O.U. earned by somebody else.

But for those who continue to push reparations as some sort of principled recompense for historical affronts, how’s this for intriguing irony? According to the 1860 census, more than 6,000 blacks owned slaves, mostly Indian but in rare cases white. Any of those slave-owning descendents want to step forward and settle ancestral matters with certain Native Americans and whites?

Wholly unresponsive: The sexual abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests of the Archdiocese of Boston continues to grow and fester. Too much attention, however, has been focused on Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law and whether he should resign.

What Law should resign himself to is coming to grips with a fundamental flaw of the church: requiring its priests to lead celibate lives. From Boston to Rome, church leaders need to examine whom it expects to attract, recruit and retain with such an unnatural qualifying commitment.

This is not a matter of transferring and counseling priests; defrocking the few outed in public; and paying hush money. It’s a matter of acknowledging a fatal flaw and doing what makes moral — and common — sense. To do otherwise is as outrageous and harmful as it is sinful. Remember sin?

Honoring Elian: Last week Al Neuharth, founder of the Freedom Forum, a non-partisan foundation dedicated to free press and free speech, was in Havana to present the Free Spirit Award to Elian Gonzalez. Previous winners include former Supreme Court Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall.

What wasn’t quite clear is why Neuharth, who’s also the founder of USA Today, found time to bestow this honor for activism on the erstwhile shipwreck survivor and focus of an international custody confrontation. Was he honored for allowing himself to be saved?

Gutsy move: Not only is it the “Axis of Evil” trio that is taking a rhetorical pounding. Even Haiti is taking one on the chops — but also in the wallet. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told that beleaguered country that the Bush administration will not release $200 million in international aid until President Jean-Bertrand Aristide takes steps to end the country’s political crisis and make its democracy work better. As if.

That should shape-up Haiti, a geopolitical and economic basketcase where literacy and arable land are as scarce as corruption-free politicians.

Meanwhile, two countries that have a lot to say about whether the world turns toward Armageddon, keep raking it in from the U.S. Israel receives $3 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid, while Egypt’s take is $2 billion.

Perhaps Powell should consider getting $5 billion worth of leverage from these deals.

Al Sharpton, President.

Of the United States.

Say what?

Not likely, of course. But if the political planets of race pandering, populism and pragmatism should align, he certainly could be a media magnet in the presidential primaries of 2004 — as well as a Democratic Party player with convention clout. And if reparations for slavery becomes a plank — not a contentious splinter — in the Democratic Party platform in 2004, you know Sharpton has been heard from — and listened to.

Now 47, Sharpton has been gradually morphing beyond typecasting as flamboyant, New York civil rights activist and preacher-agitator-opportunist. When Jesse Jackson, now 60, was found to have fathered much more than Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition, Sharpton donned the de facto mantle of pre-eminent spokesperson for black America.

The Brooklyn native is also president and founder of the National Action Network, whose mission is to “combat racial and civil rights violations.” NAN affords him a coast-to-coast bully pulpit. It’s also an effective vehicle to become better known for pushing a “progressive agenda” than supporting, say, Tawana Brawley.

All of this — and more — was on display recently at the University of South Florida in Tampa, where Sharpton gave the keynote address for the university’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations.

At a press briefing beforehand, it was clear that the Sharpton image had been modified –although not overhauled. Gone was a lot of weight, thanks to his Vieques diet. Still there: the hairstyle made famous by rock legend James Brown, whom Sharpton once managed.

“You don’t act or dress at 47 the way you did at 27,” explained Sharpton. “I have two teenaged daughters. I wouldn’t want to dress like their peers.” Unless, of course, their peers were pressed out in charcoal gray, pinstriped suits.

His “maturity and the maturity of the issues” have changed, noted Sharpton. “As you grow, you learn. You learn not to get in the way of your own message.”

Was that, say, the Tawana Brawley lesson?

Sharpton officially remains remorseless on the notorious, racially incendiary case of the discredited “rape” victim. “That happened 15 years ago,” testily noted Sharpton. “I believed in someone.” His critics, added Sharpton, “should have things a lot more recent to raise than that.”

Meanwhile, Sharpton has raised his rhetoric beyond the civil rights’ boilerplate of police brutality, affirmative action and minority incarceration rates to include empowerment, disenfranchisement, economic justice, fair labor practices and public housing issues.

He’s also added some overseas travel and a foreign policy credo.

In the last year he has visited Israel and Sudan plus the protest-arrest in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

“We need sane policies around the world,” stated Sharpton. “We need an assessment of our relationships. We have policies that exclude parts of the world. We cannot support dictators and tyrants around the world because they do business with this country.”

He characterizes the bombing in Afghanistan as a “cowboy approach that won’t solve the problem.” Here at home he sees an Administration too willing “to silence dissent.”There’s no need to “suspend civil rights and civil liberties to fight terrorism,” asserted Sharpton. “A lot of folks want quiet — not peace. Let’s preserve what’s best in America.”

And that includes more than lip service to the civil rights movement, underscored Sharpton.

“Don’t act like the problem is over,” he lectured his largely young, black audience of approximately 1,000. “Sticking your head in the sand only exposes your behind to the world.”

Sounding not unlike the vintage Jackson of a generation ago, he chucked the victim card when directly addressing his impressionable listeners. He minced no words in delivering a message of self help and individual responsibility.

King, he opined, “likely would be disappointed with this generation. The first African American generation to give less to the next generation — raising children that are going backward. As if making babies was more important than raising babies.”

He exhorted his audience not to “surrender to decadence

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers is seemingly in a bind. It’s over the issue of how to respond to Cornel West, the high-profile, black professor and prominent member of Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department.

West took umbrage at Summers’ questions about whether he had missed classes to campaign for Bill Bradley in the 2000 presidential campaign. In addition, Summers apparently had misgivings about the role, if any, of scholarship in West’s rappy recording of a CD of African American music. Moreover, Summers, a treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration, reportedly has not yet spoken out forcefully enough in favor of affirmative action and diversity.

Summers, in effect, has said that just because Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department is a celebrated one, its top celebrity-scholar-author isn’t immune from scrutiny. It speaks volumes that this even has to be spoken.

There was an attempt to patch up the resultant “terrible misunderstanding,” according to an aide to Summers. To which West responded: “As much as I forgive, I will not forget.”

Forgive what? A president for doing something other than care-taking Harvard’s image?

Forget what? Being held accountable?

As a result of the carpet calling, West may leave Harvard and head to Princeton. West said his decision would depend, in part, on whether his colleagues in the Afro-American Studies Department were staying at Harvard.

A spokesman for Harvard now says, “Dr. Summers has made it clear that collectively and individually he holds the Afro-American Studies Department in high regard.”

C’mon, President Summers. Speak for yourself — and in so-doing speak for all those who know that university campuses, especially elite ones, are bastions of political correctness run amok.

Try saying something like this: “We wish Dr. West good luck at Princeton. We also wish all the best to those colleagues of his in the Afro-American Studies Department who are also certain to leave. That’s because we are closing the department.

“Legitimate courses in Afro-American studies will continue to be offered here at Harvard; indeed, they are appropriate on any American campus that gives more than lip service to meaningful diversity. But not a whole department. Do we really want to turn out graduates with a bachelor’s in blackness? The same principle, I should add, also applies to women’s studies and other ethnic or racial studies. Individual, academically authentic courses, yes; separatist, academic apartheid, no.

“We want legitimate, world-class, academic departments — buttressed by rigorous standards — not partisan, polemicized, faux scholarship, group-think, self-esteem citadels that serve only to buff a university’s bona fides as champions of ‘diversity.’

“Harvard will manage well without Dr. West and his colleagues, thank you. As for me, of course this will cost me my presidency, but it’s worth it.

“For now, however, I can live with myself knowing I’ve used the prestigious and influential forum that is the Harvard presidency to say what no one else in academia will. If the emperor has no clothes, I’m not pretending he’s dressed to the nines.”

Primary predate: With so many senators doing a drive-by lay-of-the-landing in Afghanistan, it’s beginning to look like the first primary of the 2004 presidential race. So where’s Al Gore? Would he have to shave for a better fit with post-Taliban fashion?

Plane speaking: If an airline pilot says he’s uncomfortable with paperwork and the deportment of a man of Middle Eastern descent who’s armed and says he’s with the Secret Service, and you’re about to board that American Airlines’ plane, who do you side with? Thought so.

Born (Suit) Free: The U.S. continues to reign, of course, as the world’s most litigious nation. No one is close. But not even in the U.S. has a court ruled that a person has a right not to be born — and a concomitant right to sue for being brought into this world.

But that’s what a French court ruled in the case of a boy who was born deaf, nearly blind and retarded. His mother said she would have aborted him had doctors correctly diagnosed her German measles when she was pregnant.

But tragedy and heartache do not excuse flawed law and perilous precedent. The French National Assembly has approved a bill overturning that decision. States the bill: “No one can sue for damages for the sole fact of their birth.”

Imagine having to actually codify that concept. Only — to date — in France.

Driven to extremes: How ironic — and unsettling — is it that Charles Bishop, the 15 year old who flew a plane into a Tampa skyscraper, had to get his grandmother to drive him to his flying lesson? And she had done so before, when he was 14.

Bishop was too young to be at the wheel of a car but old enough to be at the controls of a plane. Anyone want to revisit this logic?

Drawing conclusions: Please, no more Defense Department-doctored photos of a westernized Osama bin Laden as he might look on the lam. Is the generic geek look some sort of dead give-away? It makes it too easy for those too easily disposed to dismiss legitimate evidence, such as videos and hard drive information, as the devious work of American infidels. Save it for Comedy Central and Jay Leno’s “Where’s bin Laden been hidin’.”

Flag flap: Not everything that is run up a flagpole is salute-able. Case in point: the flap over the 19-foot bronze sculpture that ostensibly replicates the famous photo of the three New York firefighters raising the flag at the World Trade Center.

A major liberty was taken, it turns out, in moving between mediums, and it has nothing to do with artistic license. It has, however, everything to do with assuring and enshrining political correctness. Not even the trauma, tragedy and sanctity of Sept. 11 is immune from the PC police, because the photo depicts three white firefighters — members of a fire department that is 93 per cent white. It’s a sensitive issue. As a result, two of those firefighters have now morphed into a black and a Hispanic.

If the controversial sculpture hadn’t been based on an actual, historic photo, then no harm, no foul, no problem. In fact, had that been the case, why not show a black, a white and a Hispanic firefighter? It would symbolically honor all those who made the supreme sacrifice.

But there’s this famous photo of three white firefighters. It was these three, actual, New York firefighters who historically hoisted that flag. Not three demographically acceptable figures. What those firefighters did was symbolic; who they were wasn’t.

Atoms Family values: Is this a definition of obscene or what? India, which can’t quite feed itself and leads the world in the number of people who live on traffic islands, has a defense budget of $15.6 billion. Pakistan, smaller but no better off, prioritizes defense to the tune of $2.6 billion annually.

The NCAA is threatening to penalize member schools for academic deficiencies. Among the proposals: taking away scholarships and withholding eligibility for post-season play. It’s all aimed at improving graduation rates — especially among football and basketball players, especially among blacks.

The proposal is well intentioned, of course, because big time intercollegiate athletics is rife with hypocritical, sham programs where players major in sports eligibility. The devil, however, is in the details, where the calculation of graduation rates is less than precise. For example, how best to factor in transfers and early pro league departures?

Here’s a suggestion. Approach it from the other end. Make athletes meet the same incoming criteria as the student body at large, where high school GPAs and SATs matter more than 40-yd time, bench-press reps, vertical leap, touchdown passes and points-per-game average. Let’s ask “Who’s got grades?” — not “Who’s got game?”

Need remedial help? That’s what high schools and community colleges are for. Need to prep for the NBA and NFL? Try hire ed and go semi-pro — and at least be honest about it.

It’s been a long time coming, but out of the atrocity of Sept. 11 has come a reality check of America’s immigration policy. In effect, we need a meaningful one.

As a nation of immigrants, we’ve been reluctant to look beyond Statue of Liberty rhetoric that never envisioned 10 million illegal immigrants in a nation at war with Islamic terrorists. Whether “huddled masses” or “muddled asses,” a “c’mon over” sentiment has been the American way.

By contrast, there’s nothing ennobling about “border security,” but it comes with the sovereign territory. The very words “border security” have all the warmth and fuzziness of a “Bad Dog, Keep Out” sign. It’s just that without it, a lot of “yearnings” will go unrealized and undermined.

The experiences of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all “nations of immigrants,” should be illustrative. They have no qualms about saying, in effect, “It’s our country, and we get to choose who’s invited to stay.”

They have quotas as the U.S. does, but they have criteria that make much more sense. Economic and security issues matter more than family connections. For example, age, education level, prioritized skills and English proficiency are critical factors. Family ties are relevant, of course, but they aren’t in themselves determinative.

Patrick Buchanan raised this issue a few years back, but unfortunately his ham-handed, politically incorrect phrasing overwhelmed his argument. “Who would better assimilate into Alexandria, Va.?” he asked. “A hundred thousand Brits or 100,000 Zulus?”

But then, that requires agreement at some point that assimilation — even at the expense of some diversity and charges of racism — is desirable as part of a national immigration policy.

Rudy Giuliani, of course, was the perfect choice for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” award. Here’s hoping, however, that his post-9/11 leadership and resilience — as well as subsequent political successes — never obscure his most important legacy. He cleaned up the Stygian Stables of Gotham and proved that a big metropolitan colossus wasn’t congenitally dysfunctional — but governable and, even, lovable. On and off Broadway.

With Giuliani out in front, New York meant business. As in investment, commerce, tourism, and safe streets.

Under Giuliani, the city fully implemented the “broken windows” theory of policing, which holds that minor offenses — such as graffiti scrawling, turnstyle-jumping and prostitution — do matter and have a corrosive, ripple effect throughout society. Smut shops were zoned out of Times Square — or out of business. For the last six years, the FBI has ranked New York as the nation’s safest large city.

Were it not for such successes, New Yorkers would have had a pre-Giuliani quality of life to return to after the 9/11 attack. New Yorkers still would have rallied, of course, because they’re tough, but Giuliani made it much easier. New York was on a solvent-and-safe roll and there was no going back — horrific atrocity notwithstanding.

As New York’s point man, Giuliani personified the resolve of the city and by extension, the country. He even made it easy for all Americans to identify and empathize with New Yorkers, no small phenomenon in its own right. And in so doing, he helped bring all Americans together.

Yes, Giuliani had become “America’s Mayor,” but it was two terms in the making. He showed cities across America that the forces of crime, cultural sludge, civic resignation, welfare dependency and urban liberalism need not triumph.

Giuliani proved that it was possible to clean up and govern New York, a task in some ways more daunting than defying terrorists and rebuilding a chunk of South Manhattan.

Rudy Giuliani: After eight years, the right person at the right place for the right Time cover. Hillary Who?