The American Spectator

TAS Live

(Page 2 of 2)

The usual questions I get about abortion are "What about a woman's right to choose?" and "Do you want to go back to the bad old days of back alley abortions?"

I always answer that it is not about choice. It is about killing a totally innocent baby, and it is really not an issue of choice when one human being has the right to kill another human being without that human being having due process of law.

Then I usually answer that any unnecessary deaths in back alleys are sad, but that whole problem has been wildly overstated. The real problem is 1.4 million of the most innocent among us getting murdered every year, a Holocaust that has cost us about 40 million lives so far, or about 40 times as many as in all of our wars.

The only really hostile audience member was a wild-eyed woman who (in between talking on her cell phone) said that those beautiful fields I admired so much were cultivated by illegal migrant labor that did not get proper schooling or proper school lunches. I said I thought they were still probably better off than in Mexico, or else why would they have come at all.

After all, I said, they are probably here illegally, and it is amazing that a nation gives social services to families who are here illegally. But, I added, there are humanitarian standards that must be upheld whether the families are here illegally or not.

The woman was about to start out on a major tear, but she was distracted by a call, and wandered off.

I signed autographs for about an hour, had some snacks, and then went off to bed.

My old pal Carl Bernstein, who has been saying terrible things about my hero, George W. Bush, told me years ago that the best thing about speaking was going out into America and seeing how wonderful Americans are. He was so right. Most of this country is friendly and cheerful. The angry people you see on TV are only a tiny fraction of the population.

In Walla Walla, life is good. Rain fell outside my hotel room as I slept. I awoke at three in the morning and looked out at the streets of downtown Walla Walla. Perfectly peaceful. No sirens. No gunshots. No drunks. The peace was total. God bless America, and Walla Walla is the America we salute when we salute the flag.

p> Tuesday br> Here I am in Las Vegas. It was a major struggle to get here. Last night in Palm Desert I spoke to an amazing group at the Marriott Desert Hot Springs Resort, a really lovely hostelry. The audience was there for the Computer World IT 100. They were an impressive crew. Smart, good senses of humor. /p>

But then, to my dismay, this morning I discovered I had mislaid my driver's license. So I had to go to a special line at the Palm Springs airport and get searched with a fine tooth comb. Then, to my further disgust, my United Express flight was canceled. Quick like a bunny, my pal Barron, who walks on water, got me a flight on a private plane to Vegas. It was a small twin-engine turbo prop, but it was fine, and in no time, I was there at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Private planes are God's gift to weary travelers. Jets are best, but any private plane is fabulous.

I am here in Vegas for a big event for Pepsi which I am in and which I helped to produce. Talk about nice people. Cathy and Alan and Dave and Richard and Jeff and all the folks from Pepsi and their ad agency, BBDO, are fabulously capable people, hard-working, utterly devoted to Pepsi and its amazing drinks, and a lot of fun to work with.

We put on a show starring Gary Shandling (hilarious), David Spade (hilarious), Mo-Nique (the best of all), and a tiny part by me, and also great show and tell by Dave Burwick, SVP of Pepsi, and the maestro of Pepsi ads for 50 years, Alan Pottasch. The audience was the nation's bottlers of Pepsi, a lively and happy bunch.

It all went well and I felt fabulous when it ended, but sad. It was a bit like a high school graduation. A lot of excitement, but who knows what happens when it is over. I wandered around the Mandalay Bay, saw many drunken people, and then went to sleep. What a lucky life I lead.

As I sat in my chair checking my e-mails, I had the sudden realization that I don't have a real problem in the world except for mortality, and as I have often said, faith takes care of that. What a blessed guy I am. I don't deserve it. But then neither do any of the lucky Americans I know.

p> Friday br> Well, here are some people who are not quite as lucky. I am at a gathering honoring Holocaust Survivors and a museum they have made in Orlando, Florida. The Holocaust Survivors are a spectacularly sprightly and lively group, especially the leader of the group, Tess Wisse. She is still beautiful and still full of fight. She gave a brilliant speech, and I followed it with a few jokes and a speech about devotion to one's parents. /p>

When I finished, I got a huge ovation. A smallish older Jewish man named Eddie came up to me and hugged me. His tears soaked my shirt onto my chest. "I am a survivor," he said. "My father did not survive. They took him away the night before Yom Kippur. He said, 'I will not survive, but you must survive to bring up your son the way I brought up mine.' No one has ever brought up the feelings in me he did until I heard you tonight. Thank you for making me think of my father in this way and on this night.'" And then he hugged me for so long I started to cry, too.

This is a great way to live. And when I walked out of the auditorium, there was no SS, no Hamas (the Middle East wing of the SS), no NKVD, just glorious, free America. God bless, God bless.

p> Sunday br> But what is this? I just finished speaking to another Jewish group, this one the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. They were a mixed audience, mostly very hostile about right to life, but overall very friendly. But one lunatic came up to the stage to say he hated me for blaming the Palestinians for the problems when the blame obviously fell on the Jews. WHAT! At the U of J? Well, wait a minute, this is Los Angeles...where up is down and down is up and white is black and black is white.... /p>

I thought a lot about how patient a speaker has to be, thanked him for his frankness, got into my limousine, drove along Mulholland Drive back to Beverly Hills, and wished I were back in Walla Walla, looking out at the perfect rolling hills and the empty, peaceful streets of God's country.

topics:
Abortion, Law