2009-11-20 13:46:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-11-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Ah. See, the thing is, I don't understand. That was the overwhelming response to last week's bit where I wondered just which "freedoms" Obama and the Democrats were usurping with their health care bill. With the exception of a few libertarians who wrote to say that our......
2009-11-13 12:10:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-11-08 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Help me out on this one — and I know conservatives will: When the right wails that its "freedoms" are being usurped by the evil, socialist, communist, fascist Kenyan in the White House — what are they talking about? The word "freedom" brings to mind th......
2009-11-06 10:50:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-11-01 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I haven't written much about religion lately, mostly because with a Democratic president and Democratic Congress, the impact of what we might call the Theocons has been diminished. More on that in a moment. Still, I've always gotten very interesting feedback from evangelicals and ......
2009-10-30 11:45:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-10-25 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Last week's bit about Fox News being unfair and unbalanced brought all sorts of mail from people outraged that I would dare impugn Fox. After all, Fox's ratings are going up as newspaper circulation drops and right there's proof that Fox is getting it right where everyone ......
2009-10-23 11:32:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-10-18 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So last week the Obama administration stepped up its war on Fox News, with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn asserting that Fox operates as an arm of the Republican Party. The right shrieked its outrage, and media analysts cried foul, saying demonizing the press never works &......
2009-10-16 14:02:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-10-11 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
One of the most interesting moments in Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story" has to do with something called a "dead peasant" insurance policy. The policies — also called janitor policies or corporate-owned policies — are taken out by companie......
2009-10-09 10:36:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-10-04 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Glenn Beck is everywhere. He's on the cover of Time magazine; he's being interviewed by Katie Couric. He's the man of the moment; he's the movement. But just what is Glenn Beck? A phenomenon, for one thing. His Fox News program airs well before prime tim......
2009-10-02 11:17:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-09-27 00:02:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The e-mail from a conservative reader was short and sweet: "Can you name three major programs that the U.S. Government has managed that has [sic] run successfully ... not fraught with fraud, on time and on budget?" Only three? Look, I don't want to come off as an a......
2009-09-26 15:00:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-09-20 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
A few weeks back, a front-page story in this newspaper reported on how Lancaster General Health, the 800-pound gorilla of local health care, is seeking to construct both a hospital and outpatient medical center in West Earl Township. The article and the subsequent online discussion went i......
2009-09-18 15:35:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-09-13 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Tuesday night came and went, and with baseball practice and everything else, I forgot about it. It was only Wednesday evening, when I mentioned that I wanted to watch President Obama's health care address, that I remembered to ask my third-grader: Did you get a chance to watch the pre......
2009-09-11 13:03:00
GIL SMART and CASEY KREIDER
......
2009-09-06 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Reading through my mail, I get this idea that conservatives loathe the postman. Not that they hide in the bushes and snarl at their mail carriers; it's not necessarily personal. But three decades after Ronald Reagan told us that government is the problem rather than the solution, it'......
2009-08-23 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Spent last weekend camping with seven other families, all with young kids, and it was a nice break. Except for the little girl's meltdowns at bedtime, which had me ready to stick my head in the campfire. Still, reality intruded. One of the dads was conservative, and around the fire the fina......
2009-08-22 15:30:00
CASEY KREIDER and GIL SMART
......
2009-08-16 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Sen. Arlen Specter visited Lebanon last week to get screamed at. And screamed at he was. The town hall meeting at the Lebanon campus of HACC: Central Pennsylvania's Community College, like so many other forums across the country this summer, degenerated into shrieking outrage over the prosp......
2009-08-14 13:40:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-08-09 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So the CBS Evening News was in town last week to cover an issue that's putting the City of Lancaster on the national map — surveillance cameras. The cameras first garnered national attention earlier this summer when the Los Angeles Times ran a long, skeptical article. That seemed to e......
2009-08-07 13:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-08-02 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
At first glance, the stories didn't seem to have much to do with one another. On July 26, the New York Times wrote of how scientists worry machines may soon outsmart man. "Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether t......
2009-08-01 13:18:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-07-26 00:15:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-07-26 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
As the massive bus pulled into the campsite, we all just sat and gaped. "Bus" is the wrong term, it was actually a shiny new RV — the biggest I'd ever seen. Indeed, it was bigger than a bus, or at least taller. I later priced the model online: well over $200,000....
2009-07-19 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Dear Latinos: On behalf of white people everywhere, I'd like to apologize. I'd like to apologize for Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. During last week's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who happens to be Latino, Coburn said — he actually said! &mdas......
2009-07-12 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So Sarah Palin bails out of the Alaska governor's chair, and everyone has a pet theory why. Some conservatives insist it's a shrewd move, positioning her perfectly for a run at the presidency in 2012. As usual, they're dreaming. Or maybe we want a president who ducks out of the kitc......
2009-07-10 11:16:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-07-05 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Dick Cheney was at it again last week. So what else is new? Commenting on the withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities, Cheney told the Washington Times that he feared the pullout would "waste" the sacrifices Americans have made in that country. A legitimate fear, perhaps. But ......
2009-06-28 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
It's late May and I'm standing on Chester Street in Lancaster, sunlight glinting off the yellow police tape as authorities interrogate neighbors in the wake of a brazen midday shooting. An older man walks up and points his cane at two nearby streetlights. "They need a camera there,......
2009-06-26 10:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-06-21 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
After a week in Orlando, Fla., with temperatures in the 90s and not a drop of rain in sight, we returned to the spring of our discontent here in Lancaster County. On the way home from Harrisburg International Airport, it poured. Two days last week, the temperature "rose" to 69 and 62 degre...
2009-06-19 08:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-06-07 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Is Scott Roeder a terrorist? Roeder is the Kansas man accused of walking into a Wichita church and gunning down Dr. George Tiller, one of the few physicians in the nation who performed late-term abortions. Tiller was widely reviled on the right. Bill O'Reilly called him "Tiller......
2009-06-04 10:06:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-05-31 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court last week, and our friends on the right said exactly what we expected them to say: She's an "activist judge." Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, and Americans United for Life were among those wh......
2009-05-29 10:40:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-05-24 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The story in the Philadelphia Daily News made me laugh. The headline — "Polls show Pa. resisting tide favoring gay marriage" — was accurate enough. But, noted writer Will Bunch, all around us things are changing. New York and New Jersey "seem to be racing to legali......
2009-05-22 10:45:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-05-17 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
If you follow the conservative ramblings as I do, you'll know that some right-wingers have been talking about secession. Texas Gov. Rick Perry invoked it briefly last month, before quickly backtracking and saying no, he wasn't really talking about reigniting the Civil War. But ......
2009-05-10 00:02:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The story was bannered across Drudge's site Wednesday morning, so I knew it was only a matter of time before my right-wing correspondents started bombarding me with it. The story was about a hedge-fund manager named Cliff Asness, who was unhappy with President Obama and wrote an open letter......
2009-05-08 10:30:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-05-03 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Who knew Sen. Arlen Specter would take my advice? Back in March, I wrote of how then-Republican Specter should switch parties. The GOP both here and nationwide is moving further right. Specter barely survived a ......
2009-04-26 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I have not written much in this space on the issue of torture, of the "enhanced interrogation" tactics that this country used as a matter of course during the Bush-Cheney "war on terror." There's a reason for that. I can understand how the government — mirroring th......
2009-04-24 14:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-04-19 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
On several occasions over the past eight years, this space focused on the burgeoning national security state we seemed to be creating, and raised concerns about a permanent surveillance infrastructure in which Americans' communications were routinely, and unconstitutionally, monitored. Cons......
2009-04-16 15:30:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-04-12 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
This one's a little different, but it's Easter. So if you're looking for the usual partisan thing, I'm sure Charles Krauthammer is up to something a few pages away. Earlier this month on a blustery Friday evening, we piled into the new minivan and headed south, to Baltimore. A c......
2009-04-10 11:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
......
2009-04-05 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
For several years this space has been an outpost in the culture wars. An incursion into hostile territory, perhaps; a liberal voice in a conservative community. And as such it's drawn lots of fire, with conservatives railing weekly about how the unorthodox (for Lancaster County) opinions ex......
2009-04-03 15:00:00
PAUL FRANZ
......
2009-03-29 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan to deal with banks' "troubled assets" came out Monday, and the market loved it. And why not? Any plan that gets "toxic waste" off the books without soaking shareholders will boost bank stocks. The government-backed "Publi......
2009-03-27 08:00:00
PAUL FRANZ
......
2009-03-22 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The outrage of the week was the AIG scandal, the insurance giant that got $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts and then doled out $165 million in bonuses to executives in its Financial Products Division — some of the very people who devised and sold the toxic derivatives that dragged the company,...
2009-03-20 13:30:00
PAUL FRANZ
......
2009-03-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I got a good chuckle last week when I heard state Rep. Pat Toomey was considering taking another run at Sen. Arlen Specter in next year's Republican primary. Toomey, you might remember, is the far-right "Club for Growth"-endorsed candidate who almost beat Specter in 2004. He ap......
2009-03-13 11:00:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart on the recent spate of Rick Santelli-inspired tea parties. In Harrisburg last Saturday, a crowd of about 1,000 gathered on the western steps of the state Capitol to protest President Obama's stimulus plan. ...
2009-03-08 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So in an attempt to give myself a headache, I sat down one day last week to read the transcript of Rush Limbaugh's speech at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. I would have just watched the video, but reading is faster — no need to pause for the rapturous applause....
2009-03-06 09:29:00
PAUL FRANZ
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele apologized to Rush Limbaugh earlier this week after the conservative radio host blasted Steele for calling him "incendiary" and "ugly" on a CNN program. Gil Smart asks in this clip, just who is in charge of the Republ......
2009-03-01 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So by now you've probably heard the rant. On Feb. 19, Rick Santelli of CNBC, railed from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade against President Obama's plan to bail out homeowners facing foreclosures. He was — you guessed it — OUTRAGED, HE WAS OUTRAGED! because the Oba......
2009-02-27 09:30:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Are CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's calls for a "Chicago Tea Party" really on the side of the people? Sunday News columnist Gil Smart discusses bailouts and Santelli in this clip....
2009-02-22 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Now I understand everything. Both before and after last week's bit on William Ayers — the former Weather Underground radical scheduled to speak at Millersville University next month — I heard from a lot of conservatives who were, predictably, outraged. Yes, they say, Aye......
2009-02-20 11:00:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart on Bristol Palin's interview with Fox News' Greta van Susteren. In the interview, Palin tells Van Susteren that abstinence just "isn't realistic" and that premarital sex is now more commonly accepted among "kids her age."...
2009-02-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
This is the part where I, as a good evil lib'rul, am supposed to defend William Ayers. Ayers, as you've probably heard, is booked to speak at Millersville University. From the uproar you'd think he was scheduled to give a seminar on bomb-making, but no; the man who gained infamy dur......
2009-02-13 12:01:00
PAUL FRANZ
The invitation of Bill Ayers to speak at Millersville University this March sparked some local outrage. Ayers was invited to speak last February by Millersville to speak on the topic of urban education, a field in which Ayers is renowned for. But his role in the 2008 presidential elec......
2009-02-08 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So I'm watching the Super Bowl and the Steelers' Santonio Holmes is making catch after catch, capping off the final drive with a toe-dragging, highlight-reel grab in the end zone that wins it for Pittsburgh — and allows me, finally, to exhale. Here's an athlete at the top of h......
2009-02-06 11:30:00
PAUL FRANZ
Gil Smart on Dick Cheney's latest interview with Politico.com. In the interview, Cheney said Obama policies might expose the country to a "mass-casualty" WMD attack by terrorist groups. ...
2009-02-01 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The letter to the editor was about American history, something I know something about. The writer was conservative, which I knew from his sneering at the liberal media; he was outraged, as conservatives so often are, at an Associated Press article on the inauguration of President Obama which noted t...
2009-01-29 15:30:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart discusses the House vote on President Obama's economy recovery plan. The 244-188 House vote registered 177 Republicans unanimous in opposition. ...
2009-01-25 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Reading Don Eberly's eloquent "High Hopes" for President Obama in last week's Sunday News, I was struck by one paragraph in which Eberly — a former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — wrote of the need to "clean up" our culture, and wondered ...
2009-01-22 16:00:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News opinion columnist Gil Smart discusses some conservatives' hopes that the Obama presidency "will fail." ...
2009-01-18 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I watched the battle over the Donegal School District referendum, fascinated. I don't have a dog in that fight, I don't have kids in the district, and so whether taxpayers voted for or against the $114 million building plan was their business, not mine. But on a broader, symbolic level,......
2009-01-15 17:10:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist discusses the end of the Bush era. Watch the video ......
2009-01-11 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The picture on the wire was sickening. Unfortunately there have been a lot of sickening pictures out of Gaza over the past few weeks, but few of them are harder to take than the pictures of the dead children. Let me describe the picture for you. The child — it is impossible to tell whethe......
2009-01-09 13:30:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart reviews Ann's latest book -- and the "flap" with NBC's "Today Show."...
2009-01-04 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
As a good lib'rul, I'm supposed to be upset with Obama's selection of evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. And I'm supposed to be upset because Warren is on the wrong side of the divide over gay marriage. Which, I think, he is. Regular ......
2009-01-03 17:30:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart discusses Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman and his controversial use of "Barack The Magic Negro," a song written by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, as a gift to lawmakers.
...
2008-12-28 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I was curious to read last week that our old pal Rush Limbaugh, even now, continues to suggest the economic crisis is a liberal plot, designed to get Obama elected and then to nationalize the banks and now the auto industry. Which, you know, has been doing well on its own. There was a time when......
2008-12-24 14:15:00
PAUL FRANZ
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart talks the finer points of Lancaster city's plan to install public security cameras on street corners....
2008-12-21 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
So I've kept quiet during the latest round of shouting over gay marriage in this newspaper. And you've no idea how difficult that was; after all, when was the last time I kept quiet about anything? But all good things must come to an end. Because I'm getting a laugh out of ......
2008-12-18 14:20:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart reacts to Newsweek's article arguing the religious case for gay marriage....
2008-12-14 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I've followed the debate over the Detroit bailout with a growing sense of dismay. What's with all the hating on the working man? Those unionized auto workers — they make $73 per hour, did you hear? How can a company possibly make a profit when its employees are so greedy?...
2008-12-11 14:35:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart takes on Bill O'Reilly's "War on Christmas." ...
2008-12-07 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I'm not sure how I missed this one the first time around, maybe because it was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. But there was a letter to the editor from Don Waite, the owner of Hempfield Beverage, the beer distributor out in Landisville. Waite heats his business with oil, and called one l......
2008-12-04 16:31:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart interviews a local beer distributor who says he was denied oil service because of the business he ran....
2008-11-30 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Stopped off at the toy store Monday to pick up an electronic gagdet for the boy's Christmas, and figured I'd be in and out. In this economy, who's shopping four days before Black Friday? Silly me. The place was packed, with four checkout lines open, at least five people in each line......
2008-11-26 16:15:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart discusses the current economic crisis.
Watch the v......
2008-11-23 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
The video making the rounds last week was supposed to show how dumb Obama supporters were. A former right-wing radio yakker-turned-filmmaker who runs a Web site called HowObamagotelected.com, asked Obama voters some basic questions abou......
2008-11-16 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Sometimes you can't put your finger on something exactly, then someone else comes along and does it for you:
It's a sad tale that began in the '80s, when leading conservatives frustrated with the left-leaning press and university establishment began to speak of an "ad......
2008-11-09 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Come Thursday morning as I write this I'm finally coming back to normal, finally realizing that yes — the country did indeed elect an African-American president, a president who appears to prize intelligence and prudence over reflexive dogmatism; a president who reflects the country's ...
2008-11-06 15:40:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Gil Smart hails the beginning of a post-racial era with the election of Barack Obama, and discusses some lingering questions about the lingering impact of Sarah Palin. ......
2008-11-04 16:20:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart comes to you with an election day special of "Smart Remarks" and discusses the potential impact of a massive Democratic victory tonight.
Click the "Video" tab to watch. ......
2008-11-02 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I'm sure it goes without saying whom I'm voting for. But I suppose I should try to explain why I'm voting for Barack Obama on Tuesday. Your average conservative probably thinks its because I'm a wealth-spreading socialist who wants the terrorists to force us all to g......
2008-10-30 15:30:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart discusses the latest political insider stories saying that Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, has gone "rogue" and ignores the advice of top McCain advisers.Click the "Video" tab to watch.
......
2008-10-26 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
Question: Is Lancaster "real America?" I ask because GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was in town last weekend, and while she didn't invoke it here, at a previous rally in North Carolina she talked about how she believes "the best of America is in these small town......
2008-10-19 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
I suffered through it. You suffered through it. Joe the plumber turned it off and watched the playoffs instead. John McCain was feisty in Wednesday's final presidential debate, but if you watched his face while Barack Obama was talking it was the most amazing thing. When McCain thou......
2008-10-12 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
It started Tuesday in Florida, where Governor Winky "took the gloves off." At a rally in Fort Myers, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists." "This is not a man," she said, "who sees America the way......
2008-10-05 00:01:00
GIL SMART, Smart Remarks
She winked at me. She winked at you, too. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin winked at America Thursday night, both figuratively and, in at least one case, literally. Near the end of her debate with Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden — right before the shout-ou......
2008-09-28 00:01:00
GIL SMART
It's almost surreal watching television commercials in the wake of what's yet being called the most severe economic crisis to hit the United States since the Great Depression. One spot stands out, a Circuit City ad in which the band Queen sings: "I want it all ... and I want it NOW!&quo...
2008-09-25 14:20:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
The McCain campaign continues to keep vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin under wraps, refusing to let her meet the press. What are they afraid of, and why won't they let her speak?
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart tackles the question in this week's video edition of "Smar...
2008-09-21 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So now you own an insurance company. Don't worry, it's not like you, personally, will be making any decisions. Rather, your government, in your name — and with your money! — assumed a 79.9 percent stake in American Insurance Group last week, to keep the massive institution f......
2008-09-18 16:07:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart takes on free market conservatives this week as America grapples with its latest financial crisis on Wall Street. John McCain says the government should be responsible for protecting the people against the excesses of the market, but Smart argues that McCain's cam...
2008-09-14 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So Sarah Palin came to town Tuesday, and brought some guy with her. Oh. Right. John McCain is at the top of this ticket, right? It certainly hasn't seemed that way over the past few weeks, as Palin has generated the bulk of both the headlines and excitement. The Palin-McCain t......
2008-09-11 13:50:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Sunday News columnist Gil Smart tackles the "pig" controversy in the latest gaffe from the presidential campaign trail. Democratic candidate Barack Obama said at a campaign stop in Virginia that, "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," an apparent reference ......
2008-09-07 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The first thing you realize is that Wasilla, Alaska, is a town of 7,025 residents, according to the city Web site. That's smaller than Lititz. Smaller than Elizabethtown. Smaller, too, than Columbia. The Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, is famously from Wasilla, the forme......
2008-09-04 16:50:00
PAUL FRANZ and GIL SMART
Gil Smart takes on John McCain's vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in this week's column. Is Palin qualified enough to serve as McCain's second-in-command? Was the selection more a result of crass politics attempting to court the "ordinary Joe Six-Pack" voter? ......
2008-08-31 00:01:00
GIL SMART
When I wrote a few weeks back that the country was now more politically conservative than at any point in my lifetime, several conservatives wrote to say I was wrong; the country, they maintained, has never been more liberal. But in fact, they were talking in social terms; they were talking abo......
2008-08-24 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So I got a kick out of my boss's column last week, in which he noted that some readers who usually use this page to line the bird cage actually find themselves … well, if not exactly agreeing with me, thinking that maybe I sound a little less evil and lib'rul than usual these days....
2008-08-17 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Her tone was all but panicked, and if you've discussed the issue, you've heard the same thing: "We've got to drill!" It's the debate du jour this summer, what to do about high gasoline prices — prices, it must be noted, that are coming down even as ......
2008-08-10 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So here's a question for you: Let's say that, given the continued high price of oil and gasoline, we begin drilling in either the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or on the continental shelf. John McCain wants to do this, of course. Increasingly, so does Barack Obama. And in one r......
2008-08-03 00:01:00
GIL SMART
It was only Tuesday, but already I'd found my quote of the week: "The common thinking among Americans is comparable to wearing a string bikini on a polar ice fishing expedition: look good until you perish." That's from one of the several bearish economic blogs I've taken to reading in rece......
2008-07-27 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The story ran in The New York Times, a tale of usury — though the writers never used the term. They detailed how moneylenders have come up with new and creative ways of separating consumers from their cash. As a case in point they used a 47-year-old Philadelphia woman hit by so many fees ......
2008-07-20 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The fall was amazing. It began Tuesday and seemed to snowball as the week wore on. By Thursday, oil prices had dropped below $130 for the first time in a month. Friday the descent steepened further. And everyone was asking: What's going on? Has the bubble finally burst? And if so, what happ......
2008-07-13 00:01:00
GIL SMART
And now, a question about Iraq. By almost all accounts, the "surge" has made progress. The decision to commit more troops has helped pacify some areas, and that has helped clear the way for political progress. I was skeptical about the surge, though not outright opposed to it, be......
2008-07-06 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I've wanted to do this now the past couple Fourths of July but never got around to it. The latest conservative nonsense always seemed to take precedence; but now, maybe, it's time to do it. It's time to talk about how a liberal thinks about patriotism. Understand that I'm n......
2008-06-29 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The National Public Radio interview was with James Howard Kunstler, author and frequent critic of what we might call the suburban idyll — the notion that we can all have our quarter-acre of paradise with the wrought iron and two-story foyers, half a state away from where we actually work....
2008-06-22 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So how many hours a day does your average Lancaster County conservative spend cringing beneath the bed, quaking in fear over how Mighty Iran might destroy us? A lot, probably. If your average Lancaster County conservative watches Fox News — which of course they do — they hear things......
2008-06-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I tried not to laugh, but did anyway. Because I have this image of John McCain as an old man — hey you kids, get off my lawn! And his remarks last week to a group in Richmond, Va., just sort of underscored the impression that the prospective leader of the free world is, shall we say, a bit beh...
2008-06-08 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The speech was amazing. Wasn't it? After nearly eight years of The Decider, it's gratifying to have a major presidential candidate who can, you know, talk. I'm not talking about John McCain, whom I'm beginning to feel sorry for. Just before Barack Obama's address, McCai......
2008-06-01 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The story was from Allentown's Morning Call, about how the Lehigh Valley region has become a mecca for New York City-bound commuters who move to northeastern Pennsylvania because they can get so much more home for their money. They bought "McMansions" — defined in the story ......
2008-05-25 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So I'm at the dentist getting so much heavy work done they might as well have called PennDOT, and out of the corner of my eye I'm watching CNN, where Barack Obama is responding to the latest foolishness from John McCain. Obama, see, gave a speech last weekend in which he said that yes, ......
2008-05-18 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The video was fascinating and sad and enraging and hilarious, all at the same time. Taken by ABC News on the day of the West Virginia primary, it showed an older woman — a Hillary Clinton supporter — explaining why she can't vote for Barack Obama: "He's a Muslim.&q......
2008-05-11 00:01:00
GIL SMART
It was a beautiful day and the afternoon was free, so we packed the little girl into the vehicle and visited a dairy south of town to buy some milk — and, of course, to look at the "moo cows." Off to the one side of the little dairy store were several calves in pens; the beasts ......
2008-05-04 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So there was a piece on the front page of Tuesday's Intelligencer Journal about rising coal prices. Demand is up; production hasn't been able to keep pace. And so while you're already paying $3.59 per gallon at the pump, while the cost of heating oil and natural gas has risen, while PPL ...
2008-04-27 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I suppose I should have expected it, and in a way I did expect it. Last week in this space we asked: Do you really think lapel pins are as important as the war in Iraq, or the cost of gasoline? And a lot of people said: Of course not. Others seemed offended by the question. Of ...
2008-04-20 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I'd forgotten the debate was on, actually. The boy had baseball practice and I coach, and that soaks up most of my extra brain cells on Wednesday nights; by the time I flipped on ABC News, around 8:20 p.m., moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous were well into the "bitter"...
2008-04-13 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. sits down with BeliefNet last week to talk about the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and who gets the edge among religious voters, particularly Catholics. Casey, who's endorsed Obama, had some interesting things to say. He also said a couple of thin......
2008-04-06 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Well, that didn't take long. Last week I wrote that if Hillary Clinton is going to use right-wing tactics in her primary battle with Barack Obama, I might just vote for John McCain instead. The e-mails saying "C'mon, you can't possibly be serious" began about five min......
2008-03-30 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The photo last week was the last straw. In it, Hillary Clinton is sitting at a table next to a guy who is listening intently to what she has to say. The photo came from an editorial meeting at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper. The guy was one Richard Mellon Scaife. If you follow politics......
2008-03-23 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Last week was the fifth anniversary of the most dishonest thing I've ever seen my country do. That would be the war in Iraq. And I use the term "dishonest" not to reflect any particular "lie" or even to suggest that there were intentional lies at any stage of the process......
2008-03-16 00:01:00
GIL SMART
And so it's about six weeks until Pennsylvania gets to play its big role in the Democratic primary, and already I'm thinking: Dear God, make it stop. Last week there was a rally for Hillary Clinton in Harrisburg. Local Democats are hoping to get a bigwig in town, and who knows! May......
2008-03-09 00:01:00
GIL SMART
One of the most interesting aspects of the gay marriage debate is the degree to which it demonstrates conservatives' embrace of big government. Conservatism has always been founded on a bedrock belief in smaller government, in less governmental intrusion into individual lives. And arguably,......
2008-03-02 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Walk into my son's school and saunter down the hallway to the left and you run into a picture of state Sen. Mike Brubaker. It's a small picture in which he's standing with a student. Which is appropriate, I suppose, as Brubaker is the legislator representing this neck of the woods. ......
2008-02-24 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Let this be a lesson: the perils of working too far ahead. I'd had a piece all set to go this week on how the marriage between John McCain and the more conservative elements of his party was a rocky one at best. Conservatives don't like McCain because McCain isn't doctrinaire enough......
2008-02-17 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So Gov. Ed Rendell created a minor stir last week when, during a meeting with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he said he wasn't sure that Barack Obama would do so well in Pennsylvania, because, "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites w...
2008-02-10 00:01:00
GIL SMART
In my old age, I get more and more suspicious of big government. Which may sound like a strange thing for an evil lib'rul to say. For liberalism is, or at least has been, wedded to the notion of big government, of using the apparatus of the state to achieve the common good. For more than a ......
2008-02-03 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So last week there was this front page story in the Lancaster New Era about women who are advertising "erotic services" on Craigslist, an Internet service, that, according to the report, "accepts free ads for just about anything." And then some. It was a good story and an am......
2008-01-27 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So occasionally I hear from people who say sure, they read this space and all, but what they really like are the letters in response to this space. I get a kick out of them, too, but some of the best letters I get are never featured a few pages over. Invariably, they're from p......
2008-01-20 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I've had a hard time disliking Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee as much as I probably should. But Huckabee is working overtime to remedy this: "I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told an audience in Michigan on M......
2008-01-13 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Turned on the TV first thing Wednesday morning and groaned. Hillary had won the New Hampshire primary. And away we go. I am not, as so many conservative readers seem to think, a Hillary Clinton fan. Indeed, if Hillary Clinton winds up the eventual Democratic nominee, I think it will be a v......
2008-01-06 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
&mda......
2007-12-30 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So there was this item in my colleague Helen Colwell Adams' column about local politics last Sunday, announcing that a "Unity Prayer Breakfast" hosted by the Lancaster County Council of Churches and sponsored by the county Republican and Democratic committees was set for Jan. 4. T......
2007-12-23 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The boy is right on the cusp. Downtown last weekend, we went to see "Santa" over at the Heritage Center Museum, and the boy wouldn't sit on his lap. He was embarrassed; at age 6, maybe that's normal. But it made me sad to think that maybe, already, the whole thing may be winding do...
2007-12-16 00:02:00
GIL SMART
Reader JM sent me a link last week to a blog on The New York Times Web site written by one Stanley Fish — a widely respected academic who (nonetheless?) approached his subject with a good deal of conservatism. Or rather, what used to pass for conservatism. In the piece, titled "Integ......
2007-12-09 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The news early in the week was good, or should have been good. A new National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. For a country on the edge of hysteria over the prospect of Islamists with nukes, it should have made for a very merry Christmas......
2007-12-02 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So. Who's up for a little war on Christmas? The Fox News crowd hasn't been pounding this particular drum as loudly as in previous years, but I'm sure it's on the way. The whole thing's become a joke amongst us evil lib'ruls, who actually have nothing against Christmas. I......
2007-11-25 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Thanksgiving, and I'm thankfully not amongst the millions who will hit the road or fly the unfriendly skies. My family, parents and brother and sister, are here. I am not, as seems to be commonly assumed, "from" Pittsburgh, though I went to school there and lived in the city's nort...
2007-11-18 00:02:00
GIL SMART
I like the idea that I'm not the only outspoken evil lib'rul in town. Last week on this page a gentleman named Rick Straub wrote an excellent essay that touched on what we might call the evangelical impulse inherent in our occupation of Iraq. It was itself a response to a column that ap......
2007-11-11 00:01:00
GIL SMART
"What should the U.S. be doing right now?" asked Wolf Blitzer. The same question about the same subject, Pakistan, was being asked on the other networks. The president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, has instituted something very close to martial law — though it's not being c......
2007-11-04 00:02:00
GIL SMART
The e-mail was titled, "MESSAGE FROM PATTON'S GHOST." It was the usual right-wing thing. In it Patton's ghost, as imagined by some random right-winger, tells Americans to get their heads out of their collective posterior because Muslims are on the loose: "If they manage t......
2007-10-28 00:02:00
GIL SMART
The pictures of the fire were mesmerizing. It was as if you were staring into the very face of creation, or its polar opposite, and it was hard to look away. For most of the past week, the nation didn't. As the wildfires of Southern California blazed away, we caught our collective breath; thous......
2007-10-21 00:02:00
GIL SMART
The discussion was about Abraham Lincoln, and specifically, briefly, the Gettysburg Address. It's always impressed me not just because it captured the pathos of the moment so eloquently and succinctly, but because this, perhaps the greatest of American speeches, was written by the president hims...
2007-10-14 00:02:00
GIL SMART
The juxtaposition was amusing. But I suppose at this point, it shouldn't be startling. In our local Lancaster New Era last Tuesday was an editorial commenting on the situation at Warwick High School. Earlier this month, 12 kids — some of whom pride themselves as "rednecks," ......
2007-10-07 00:01:00
GIL SMART
"Are you going to see the president?" I must have been asked that about 30 times. I did not go to see the president, though I suppose I could have made arrangements. But why? What was I going to do, count the number of times he invoked 9/11 or the terrorists who "hate our fr......
2007-09-30 00:01:00
GIL SMART
You heard the laughter, I assume If you watched the Iranian president's speech at Columbia University last week, you probably heard the laughter — particularly the guffaws that greeted his assertion that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Right. Although it strikes me that conservative......
2007-09-23 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The usual suspects choked on last week's bit about Iran. Don't I know Iran is bad? If we let evildoers alone they might do evil to us! I have absolutely no doubt that were we to bomb Iran tomorrow, the 28 percenters would be fully on board. They buy the rhetoric of this being a clash of......
2007-09-16 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Think back about 25 years or so — A Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran, "Dallas" and "Magnum, P.I.," Reagan in the White House and air traffic controllers on the street — and consider what might have happened if the Soviet Union had invaded Mexico. We wouldn't......
2007-09-09 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bathroom... As of this writing Idaho Sen. Larry Craig may not be resigning. He's hired a high-powered "crisis management team" which includes Michael Vick's lawyer; they've argued that the Senate can't mount ......
2007-09-02 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The little boy went back to school last week. And so did I. Tuesday marked the beginning of what I hope will eventually be a master's degree in history. It's something I'd been thinking about for some time, and finally got up off my duff to do. I wasn't much interested in histor......
2007-08-26 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The week at Lewes was warm and relaxing, with two exceptions. First, the little girl passed her cold along to the rest of us. Worse was the fact that the Delaware Department of Transportation, in its infinite wisdom, had deemed late August an ideal time to block off several lanes of Route 1 between ...
2007-08-19 00:01:00
GIL SMART
You may have noticed that this space has turned inward, toward matters of family and of faith, and away from the headlines, away from the war in Iraq. There are a number of reasons for that. When you have young kids, as I do, they tend to dominate your time and your consciousness. They are your......
2007-08-12 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Whenever I write about cultural conservatives and morality, I get two types of reactions. The first is from those who want to debate not the points I've made, but their own points, chief among them their assertion that without God, without a literalist interpretation of the Bible, there can be n...
2007-08-05 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Ah, right-wingers. There are times you can predict exactly how right-wingers will react to something, and last week's bit was a case in point. I lamented that my Star Wars-loving son wants to see "Revenge of the Sith" but that my wife and I have deemed it too violent for a 6-year-......
2007-07-29 00:03:00
GIL SMART
The boy has turned into a major Star Wars fan, and our house has become home to an ever-growing array of action figures, Lego clones and droids, video games and more. It's as if Chewbacca has learned how to reproduce. The funny thing is that I'd only seen the original movie when the boy......
2007-07-22 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Flipped on the Weather Channel to see what the morning weather babes had to say and encountered one of those annoying "HeadOn" commercials. So I surfed over to CNN, where I found something infinitely worse. At the bottom of the screen was the red-bannered headline, "Scuba terror ......
2007-07-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The news, early in the week, was hardly surprising. "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey had, as promised, released her telephone records, and one of the first prominent names to show up, ostensibly for calling about arranging the services of a pricey call girl, was Louisiana Sen. David Vitt...
2007-07-08 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Just hours after the Leader commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence, Matt Drudge helpfully posted a list of all the people Bill Clinton pardoned during his tenure. See? Clinton did it too! And so it's just fine for the Leader to determine that Libby's sentence was "excess......
2007-07-01 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I started smoking in college, mostly because a fraternity brother did. By the time I got my degree, I'd graduated to about a pack of Camel Lights a day. It was slightly rebellious, which appealed to me, and especially once I got my first journalism job, it seemed somehow appropriate. My co-......
2007-06-24 00:01:00
GIL SMART
I was 18 and she was blond, a Southern girl from northern Virginia who happened to be spending senior week at Ocean City, Md., just like me. I fell so hard so fast I didn't know what hit me. I'd never experienced anything like that before. And when the week ended, I watched her drive aw......
2007-06-17 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The setting was Lancaster Christian School, an auditorium stage where a group of 11th- and 12th-graders were arrayed as an orchestra might have been, with me in the conductor's chair, the hot seat. I was not there to conduct them but challenge them. A teacher at the school reads the strange......
2007-06-10 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Another week, another shooting. This time, last Sunday, it was Mark Q. Galloway. Apparently enraged at the disintegration of his relationship with his girlfriend, he whipped out a 9mm semi-automatic and shot her and four others - including a 2-year-old boy. Then he turned himself in. S......
2007-06-03 00:01:00
GIL SMART
You've heard the term "the best and brightest." Call this one "the dim and the mediocre." Monica Goodling is a nice Christian girl from York County who got her law degree at the school founded by Pat Robertson, Regent University. Upon graduation she found work as an oppo......
2007-05-27 00:01:00
GIL SMART
It was 1997 and there was a rash of car thefts in Lancaster County. But we're not talking jimmy-the-door, hotwire-the-ignition type of car thefts; the thieves were more like opportunists, stealing cars that people left running in Turkey Hill parking lots, or "warming up" in their own d...
2007-05-20 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The Republican debate last Tuesday night was telling in more ways than one, especially when it came to issue of torture. Or "enhanced interrogation techniques," as moderator Brit Hume, by way of George Orwell, put it. Hume's scenario was this: Three shopping centers near majo......
2007-05-13 00:02:00
GIL SMART
Our old friend Bill O'Reilly is at it again. Well, I suppose he wouldn't be Bill O'Reilly if he wasn't. This time he's all bent out of shape over liberal financier George Soros, who has been "buying political power" by giving money to left-wing organizations i......
2007-05-06 00:02:00
GIL SMART
So I see where Our Leader vetoed the spending bill that would have mapped a way out of Iraq. The Leader had to veto it, he said, because it was a "prescription for chaos and confusion." What's happening now in Iraq, see, constitutes something else. And now that this meddlesome bill has been dis......
2007-04-29 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Every time I get into an argument with a right-winger about the mess in Iraq, I can count on it: At some point they're going to bring up World War II. In World War II we bombed Dresden and Hamburg and didn't sit around worrying about civilian casualties. In World War II we didn'......
2007-04-21 22:45:00
GIL SMART
Cho Seung-Hui and his victims hadn't been dead 24 hours when the first e-mail showed up from a partisan group, proclaiming that the massacre proved its point. In this case it was Gun Owners of America, asserting that had there been some good, old-fashioned gun owners on campus at Virginia Tech ......
2007-04-15 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Growing up a conservative teenager in Manheim Township, God help me, I thought Ronald Reagan was infallible. Not that I and my "conservative" high school buddies had any idea what it meant to actually be conservative. Conservative was simply what our parents were, conservatism was &qu......
2007-04-08 14:18:00
GIL SMART
See, this is what I love about Republicans.If you watch Fox News or cruise the right-wing blogs, first, my condolences. Second, you're probably aware of Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, which undercut Our Leader and proved that she hates America.Syria, of course, is The Enemy, ......
2007-04-01 00:04:00
GIL SMART
So I do this occasional dog-and-pony show where I get up and speak for 45 minutes or so and people pretend to be interested, or maybe they really are. Usually we talk about the events of the day, what it's like to be a loudmouth liberal in parochial old Lancaster County, things like that. But a......
2007-03-25 00:03:00
GIL SMART
Last election season I had an idea for a campaign commercial. It would have begun simply with a single individual, an average American who looked into the camera and said something like this: "We live in the most powerful and benevolent nation in the history of the world, but we do have......
2007-03-18 00:09:00
GIL SMART
When you talk about the most dangerous person in the world, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might figure pretty prominently. Moqtada al-Sadr might make the list. How about Dick Cheney? I'm not talking about his hunting trips but rather his war-mongering ways. Cheney, more than......
2007-03-11 00:04:00
GIL SMART
One of these days I'm going to write a column consisting of nothing more than paraphrases of things Ann Coulter has written or said over the years. For example, I might write that it's too bad Timothy McVeigh didn't detonat......
2007-03-04 00:09:00
GIL SMART
America is now tasked with bringing the dark side to submission. But of course we have neither the means nor the will to do so. The Great Muslim War will keep us locked in, so the more we thrash within our story, the more we will undo ourselves. Our narrative has blocked every exit. Escape of......
2007-02-25 00:01:00
GIL SMART
Occasionally I'm asked why I keep referring to that guy in the White House as "Our Leader." It's not that I'm trying to suggest he's like the North Korean strongman. Frankly, Our Leader doesn't have the hair for it. Instead, I use the term for two reasons. ......
2007-02-18 00:00:00
GIL SMART
You've seen the stories. Our Leader looks to be ginning up reasons for war with Iran. And so we've had the claim that Iran is providing the IEDs being used to kill and maim our troops in Iraq, even though Iran would logically be giving the IEDs to Sh'ia militias, while most of th......
2007-02-11 00:01:00
GIL SMART
So the fundamentalists are mad at me. In other news, grass is green, water wet; film at 11. This time it was last week's bit, where I laid into a Seattle-area dad who demanded his daughter's school refrain from "An Inconvenient Truth" by noted pinko Al Gore, because gl......
2007-02-04 00:01:00
GIL SMART
The story is out of suburban Seattle, of a middle-school class that was going to see Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," as part of a discussion about global climate change. I realize there's disagreement over whether global warming is real, or whether we are causing it......
2007-01-28 00:01:00
Gil Smart
Every time I write about the religious right, the notion comes up. If only uppity liberals like me would shut our yaps and open our Good Books, we might return to that golden era when this was a “Christian” nation and the unimaginable crime and depravity of our times would once a......
2007-01-20 23:31:06
Gil Smart
If anything, the piece is even more incendiary than the title suggests. For Hedges, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, son of a Presbyterian minister and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, has written a book titled “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on Ameri...
2007-01-13 23:26:34
Gil Smart
And away we go.
The president’s speech Wednesday night was thin rhetorical gruel. The real news came near the end, in the announcement that an additional carrier strike group had been deployed to the Gulf, and the threats directed at Syria and Iran — words which were followed by action, w...
2007-01-06 23:45:36
Gil Smart
Yes, there was a slapdash barbarism to it all. You might have hoped that after 3,000 American dead and untold Iraqi sacrifice, Saddam’s execution could have been handled with a measure of decorum. Instead we got a lynching, one in which the only person who comported himself with any dign...
