as published on examiner.com

Conservative and liberal “commentators” (read: opinion hacks who pretend they are journalists) love a good scandal, controversy, or public disagreement. When they can’t find one, they make one up with the old stand by of “X is raising eyebrows”, all the while  conveniently failing to identify any actual individuals whose eyebrows have been set high upon the forehead.  The Left is aghast at Conservatives at Fox and other outlets who are atwitter over what Conservatives view as the latest in a long line of poor reasoning and outright poor taste from the White House. Of course,  one must ask when aren’t Conservatives incensed over the actions of liberals?.

The political and media Left wishes to have the public believe that First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House  invite to hip hop artist Common, and his subsequent visit, is just one of those ginned up controversies.

The Liberal left insists that Common’s visit is a non sequiter.  Online supporters of this view go so far as to suggest that the invite was a baiting game: invite the most innocuous black artist one can find so as to drive those big old bigots on the Right into a tizzy.

In 1967, Professor Arthur A. Ekirch (1915-2000), announced that the American Left was on life support with his publication of The Decline of American Liberalism. In “Decline..”, Professor Ekirch, himself a Liberal, described the chaos and inconsistencies within the framework and the philosophy of American Liberalism, yet he offered no explanations and no solutions which might save the Left. I would like, in the wake of N.P.R.’s firing of Juan Williams, to say that there were and are no solutions, and to announce that as a political force and as ethical and philosophical theory, American Liberalism (and its underpinning, Progressivism) is no longer in decline. The plug has been pulled on the patient by the Left’s friends. Liberalism is dead.