Gregory Kane's top macho flicks: How do yours match up?

Gregory Kane

January 30, 12:00 AM January 30, 09:21 AM

In my last column, in which I described what movies are best to watch when you're lying in a hospital bed in excruciating agony and pain, did you notice my list had a bit of a macho tint?

Yes, I confess to being a fan of what I consider “macho movies,” and there’s no better time to watch them than under what I consider dire circumstances. So see how your list of top macho movies compares with mine. (These are in no particular order.)

Greg Kane's top macho flicks

"The Magnificent Seven" -- No fewer than five actors of this 1960 film were either leading men their own right or went on to become mega-stars of the small and/or silver screen: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn.

"The Dirty Dozen" -- Just as many megastars are in this 1967 World War II flick: Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Donald Sutherland, Bronson, Jim Brown and Telly Savalas.

"The Wild Bunch" -- Borgnine and Ryan team up again, along with William Holden, Edmund O'Brien, Warren Oates and Ben Johnson. Holden and Borgnine play a group of aging outlaws in circa-1914 Mexico who've lived way past their time. Ryan plays the former comrade-in-arms hired -- or is it coerced? -- into tracking them down.

"Unforgiven" -- Clint Eastwood's Western anti-hero, “a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition,” can barely mount his horse or shoot his own gun. Fans of the Western genre might consider Eastwood's 1992 flick the beginning of the end for Westerns.

"The Outlaw Josey Wales" -- Eastwood on more familiar ground, in which he is able to shoot his own gun and ends up killing a mess of bad varmints as a consequence.

"A Soldier's Story" -- This is Charles Fuller's story adapted from his play about those obscure instances during WW II in which black and white American soldiers regularly assaulted, brutalized and murdered each other during basic training. Baltimore native Howard E. Rollins plays a black lieutenant sent South to investigate the murder of a black platoon sergeant. Was it the work of local racists, or are things not what they seem?

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" -- Answers the question of many Western fans. Would liberals have let Liberty Valance shoot Ransom Stoddard dead on the streets of Shinbone? The answer is: Of course they would have, and then they'd have obsessed about the “root causes” of why Valance was the malicious killer he was.

Marvin, at his homicidal best, plays Valance. James Stewart plays Stoddard, the Eastern lawyer convinced that only law and order, not vigilante justice, can remove the menace known as Valance. John Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, the wealthy rancher who eventually proves Stoddard wrong.

"The Searchers" -- This is either John Ford's magnum opus or Wayne's. Take your pick.

"Vera Cruz" -- Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster? Really, can it get any better than that?

Any movie with Audie Murphy -- Murphy was America's most decorated combat soldier during World War II. Once he finished his military service, he took up acting, and his movie fans haven't regretted the action once.

I suppose those not familiar with Murphy's films should start with “To Hell and Back,” the biopic of Murphy's WWII days. But my favorite are Audie Murphy westerns. I'll kick a Wayne western to the curb seven days a week and twice on a Sunday to watch a Murphy western.

Here’s how addicted I am to Audie Murphy Westerns: I’m recording “Posse From Hell” on three of four televisions in the house.

“Why are you recording on three televisions?” the wife asked.

“This is Audie Murphy in ‘Posse From Hell,’ ” I answered. She repeated her question.

“I’ll say this one more time,” I answered: “This is Audie Murphy in ‘Posse From Hell.’ ”

Therein ended the discussion.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Films to watch when you're in pain

Gregory Kane

January 27, 12:00 AM January 27, 09:49 AM

I lost a day.

Actually, I lost two days. On Monday night, Jan. 13, around 10:30 p.m. or so, I walked into the emergency room of Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

As of 9 p.m. on Jan. 26, I’m still in here.

It’s all part of my now-three-year-fight against cancer. I came in to get care for what I thought was affliction A, only to be treated for afflictions B and C.

So there I was, the morning of Jan. 17, listening to newscasts while fighting through pain.

“Muhammad Ali turns 72 today," a voice said.

That’s all I remember, until around 7 or 8 p.m. on Jan. 18, when I awoke to find my brother Mike lovingly clasping my right hand, assuring me that he was determined to be there whenever I awoke from whatever stupor I was in and that I would lick this cancer.

On Tuesday, Jan. 22, I underwent some very excruciatingly painful spinal surgery, which left me barely able to read, much less move. So writing columns was out.

It was then that I’d wished I’d popped a bunch of DVDs into a bag with a portable DVD player and brought them to the hospital with me. It would make for painful viewing, but viewing, nonetheless.

It was this experience that compelled me to write my very own “Must See DVDs To Watch When You’re In Excruciating Pain” list. These aren’t, as you might suspect, bad movies. Fact is, most are considered quite good.

AMC came through for me once again, running the "Godfather” trilogy. Yes, I know critics don’t think much of “The Godfather, Part III,” but that just makes the film all the more compelling viewing for me.

Besides, “The Godfather” is so brilliant it more than makes up for any shortcomings “Part III” might have.

AMC is also usually the channel that comes through with viewings of Clint Eastwood’s anti-Western “Unforgiven.” This is the film in which Eastwood pillories and pricks every stereotype known to the Western genre.

Eastwood’s “hero,” one William Munny, is no hero at all. Rather, he’s a “known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition." He’s absolutely useless when it comes to hitting the broad side of a barn with a handgun and can barely mount his horse.

The “villains” in “Unforgiven” are more heroic than villainous; the so-called miscreants make for much more complex characters.

Interesting stuff to ponder, I suppose, when you’re in agonizing pain.

And, in case you haven’t noticed the pattern by now, it’s AMC to the rescue once again with the final two movies on the list: “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption.”

These films have quite a bit in common: Each was adapted from a Stephen King story, each is set in a prison and each has as least one African-American protagonist.

The similarities end there. “Shawshank” is the far more secular movie, with Andy Dufresne seeking to escape a cruel prison system that has unjustly captured his body, but not his mind.

“The Green Mile” soars to the level of the spiritual, with the late Michael Clarke Duncan superbly portraying an unjustly convicted death-row inmate whose healing powers astound, confound and bewilder the corrections officers who will soon be pulling the plug on his life.

I had to rely on AMC to help me out with the "Godfather” trilogy, but I had to bring in “Shawshank” and “Green Mile” from my home library. (No, I haven’t quite caught on to the Netflix thing yet.)

But who knew there are films that can sill make for entertaining viewing even when the viewer is in a great deal of pain?

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Martin Luther King Jr. deserves respect

Gregory Kane

January 20, 12:00 AM January 20, 08:50 AM

I guess the most offensive “flyer” was the one depicting Martin Luther King Jr. flashing a wad of cash and standing next to a scandalous, nearly butt-naked hoochie.

That must have been for starters. Other “flyers” promoting “celebrations” of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday have been popping up across the country.

There's the one I described above.

Another depicted what I call a “blinged-up” King -- sporting a bejeweled crown advertising a free King holiday bash: “Free At Last: Everybody Over 21 Free Till After Midnight.”

Then there was this promotional gem: a flyer advertising a “No School, No ID, No Worries” bash.

And now we come to this piece de resistance of advertising: a blinged-up King on flyer advertising a “Freedom 2 Twerk” weekend party in Flint, Mich.

My sincerest apologies to those of you who have, so far, been spared the indignity of knowing what “twerking” is.

For those of you who already know, well, the saying goes: no harm, no foul. Twerking is a “dance” that is said to have started in the South. Here's my own spin on it:

Twerking is a dance done mainly by women and by men who have way too much time on their hands.

In the twerking, the women grind their hips lasciviously -- often the crotches of horny young men. As you might have surmised, “twerking” is considered quite vulgar.

Now we come to the heart of the matter about what some are calling only “harmless” flyers. I'm not going to sit here in this hospital -- in my seventh day of hospitalization, no less -- and pretend that Martin Luther King Jr. was a loyal, devoted and faithful husband to his wife Coretta Scott King. I've read too much by and about King to know otherwise.

But here's what I have learned from all I have read by and about King: The man did indeed have extramarital affairs. His private life was his private life. Few of us knew about his private life.

King wouldn't have been caught dead tossing $10, $20 and $50 bills into the air at any nightclub in the nation. Neither, for that matter, would other prominent civil rights leaders of that era: Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Whitney Young of the Congress of Racial Equality.

Not even John Lewis — followed by Stokely Carmichael and then H. Rap Brown — would have been caught at a strip nightclub. And they were the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — better known as SNCC — then considered the youngest and most radical (and presumably, the horniest) of all the civil rights groups.

Black Nationalist leader Malcolm X wouldn’t be on that list either.

Now that we’ve discussed King’s generation of black Americans, it’s only appropriate that we discuss the one where some — many? most? — feel flyers depicting Dr. King as he’s been depicted are either wise, cute or clever.

Immediately, or so it seemed, after King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, there was a move afoot to have his birthday declared a national holiday. Since we celebrate that holiday today, it would also seem like the movement was a success.

It would have been every bit as inconceivable for members of the Baby Boomer generation to get an image of King, Wilkins, Young, Farmer, Malcolm X, Lewis, Carmichael or Brown sitting in a strip club. Said image simply wouldn’t stick.

Only members of black America’s hip-hop generation can imagine such images of King. Only they think there's nothing wrong with King being depicted in such a despicable manner.

It is only they who see nothing with a blinged-out, pimped-up image of one of the greatest civil rights leaders this nation has known.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Things that shouldn't be on television

Gregory Kane

January 16, 12:00 AM January 16, 08:05 AM

Here are a few more things that need to be off my television, and soon:

Memo to NFL officials: Many of us were born at night. Few of us were born last night. And the more discerning of us have noted that there is no “two-minute warning” given near the end of televised collegiate football games.

At college games, there is a huge game clock for all to view. Fans, coaches and players all know when two minutes are left.

Fans, coaches and players at NFL games know when two minutes are left. The huge game clock makes sure no one is left in the dark on that matter.

So the NFL should come clean and admit that its “two-minute warning” is nothing more than a method of squeezing in another round of commercials before the game ends. There should be truth in advertising.

So the NFL needs to abandon its policy — or more accurately, its pretense — of giving out a “two-minute warning.” Call it what it is: the final round of commercial breaks.

There have been times when I’ve wondered if NFL games were broadcast simply to fill in the space between commercials. I get DirecTV’s “Sunday Ticket” package, which means I can tune in any game on any given Sunday. (And yes, as the more perspicacious among you might have surmised, I got the “Sunday Ticket” package in case Ravens games got too gruesome.)

When I turn to any particular game, chances are I might get that game. But there’s a better chance I’ll get one of the annoying commercials that accompany games.

On the other hand, when I turn to a soccer game, I’ve never had to put up with a commercial. I always get the soccer game.

That’s because soccer games run continuously — in two 45-minute halves — with no commercial breaks. So while I’m on the subject of what there needs to be less of on my TV, I feel it’s only appropriate to mention what there could be more of:

Soccer games.

A memo to those Ford execs who gave the go-ahead for this campaign: The word “further” refers to extent or degree. The word “farther” refers to distance.

So the Ford campaign should have the slogan “Go Farther,” not “Go Further.” But cautious motorists, as a result of this Brobdingnagian boo-boo by Ford execs, will no doubt raise this question:

If those big brains at Ford don’t know simple stuff — like the difference between the words “farther” and “further” – then why should motorists trust them to know the complicated stuff?

Like knowing the finer points of manufacturing well-engineered automobiles?

Remember back in the days when television personalities — news anchors, meteorologists, sports announcers and the like — had to have virtually mastered the king’s English before they were even considered for an on-air job?

Those days are long gone. Today, it seems anybody can qualify for an on-air job just by showing up for the interview.

That might be why we’re hearing the kinds of things we hear on the air: errors in even the simplest noun-verb agreement and on-air personalities who haven’t a clue about when to use pronouns like “him,” “her,” “he” and “she.”

It’s enough to make any English teacher I had who’s still alive cringe with disgust; and it’s enough to send those who have died a-twirling in their graves.

When did horrible English become acceptable, and when did a mastery of the language become held in such low regard?

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Amiri Baraka represented the worst of today's Left

Gregory Kane

January 12, 12:00 AM January 12, 10:40 PM

In one of what were probably several obituaries written about poet, playwright, essayist and activist Amiri Baraka after his death, one reporter told how he preferred to be remembered:

“Well, I guess as a poet and a political activist. The poetry is at the base of it.”

Sorry, Mr. Baraka, but here’s how I’ll remember you: as a nasty, bilious little man who was the quintessential representative of today’s leftists and liberals.

Which is to say bilious and nasty.

Baraka died Thursday, Jan. 9, in Newark, N.J., where he had lived most of his life. Throughout his life, he attempted to combine first Black Nationalism, then Marxism, with his artistic works.

It was after his leftward drift and embrace of Marxism that Baraka became his most nasty and bilious, especially during the last 10 or so years.

Baraka was an African-American, and, like most of his fellow African-Americans who happen to be liberal and leftist, he had little to no tolerance for African-Americans with conservative views.

That might be why, in one poem, he referred to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a “skeeza.” (Online dictionaries seem to be in agreement that the term “skeeza” is basically equivalent to that of a slut.)

Baraka read that poem a few years back in front of a nearly all-black audience at Coppin State in Baltimore. (Coppin State is a historically black university.)

When Baraka read the line calling Rice a skeeza, the crowd didn’t just applaud. They stomped their feet. They howled. They roared. There was such sheer joy that you’d have thought the Ravens had just won the Super Bowl.

I wrote a column about Baraka’s nastiness and the crowd’s inappropriate reaction, only to get email from a Coppin State professor defending both. Of course it was nasty and bilious.

The curious thing about black leftists like Baraka is that when they say such things about a Condoleezza Rice and get away with them, they become emboldened. They become encouraged.

So it came as no surprise to me later that Baraka sought out Michael Steele, an African-American and a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, as his next target.

Steele, according to Baraka, was “a real public coon.”

For at least the last six years, liberals and leftists have been telling us that anyone who so much as disagrees with their darling, President Obama, is a racist.

Mind you, no one in the Republican Party, or in the Tea Party movement, has come even close to calling Obama the “n” word. (That task was left once again to nasty, bilious leftists, those in the New Black Panther Party.)

And none of these supposed racists has dared call Obama a coon. But Baraka had no problem calling a prominent black Republican that word.

What was the reaction of his fellow leftists and liberals, black and white alike? Why, silence, of course. They understood Baraka’s nastiness, indeed might have, deep down, encouraged it.

Recently Melissa Harris-Perry, who hosts a show on MSNBC, apologized to Mitt Romney’s family about a segment that appeared on her program.

In the segment, viewers and panelists were shown a photo of the Romney family with Romney holding his infant adopted black grandson on his lap.

The panelists made it a point to mock the photo and the Republicans’ supposed lack of commitment to diversity.

To this day I’m pondering what Harris-Perry apologized for. Her panelists reacted as the nasty, bilious leftists they are. What did Harris-Perry think was going to happen when her panelists saw the photo?

With Baraka’s passing, the left has now lost it nastiest and most bilious.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

'War on Poverty' turned poor folks into victims

Gregory Kane

January 08, 12:00 AM January 08, 10:08 PM

I turned on several newscasts Wednesday and learned that day was the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson declaring a “War on Poverty” in America.

That would have been Jan. 8, 1964, a time when my mother and her six kids were indeed poor. But my Mom — God rest her soul — started waging her own war on poverty long before Johnson launched his.

My mother was born into poverty in 1922. She lived in those Depression years that were tough on all Americans. Black Americans, because of Jim Crow and segregation, had it even rougher.

She had only made it to the eighth grade when her mother, Helen Floyd, suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be confined to an institution. The safety net for poor folks then wasn’t what it was today; my mother and her siblings had to fend for themselves.

With only an eighth-grade education, Mom had to take whatever job a poor, uneducated black woman of that era could get. For years, she worked in a laundromat, pressing clothes on a steam machine.

By 1964, she was still working as a laundress. But she had also decided to get her graduate equivalency diploma.

I still remember her getting home from work and hitting the books. I even had to help her out with algebra, since I was kind of good at math in those days.

Once Mom got her GED, she took an exam for a job at Social Security. It wasn’t long after Johnson declared his war on poverty that Mom kissed her laundry days goodbye forever and started working for the federal government.

A better job with higher pay meant Mom could eventually buy a house and become a homeowner, as opposed to being the renter she had been all her life.

Ruth Katherine Floyd’s idea of a “war on poverty” was to work to get out of poverty. She sure as heck didn’t wait around for Lyndon Johnson and liberal politicians to rescue her and her six children.

That’s not meant to disparage or demean those still living in poverty today, even though liberals demean poor folks, especially poor black folks, every day.

Before 1964, poverty was an economic condition; those living in it were expected, indeed encouraged, to work their way out of it.

After 1964, after Johnson declared his “War on Poverty,” liberals did to poor folks, especially poor black folks, the worst thing they could have done to us.

They made us victims.

As victims, we weren’t expected, indeed not encouraged, to act responsibly. We could do no wrong, and woe betide the person who said anything bad about us.

Just ask Bill Cosby. Back in 2004, Cosby told the truth: that there are perhaps millions of black Americans “not holding up their end of the deal” when it comes to educating their children.

Reaction was swift and harsh. Ten years later, there are people who still hate Cosby for making that remark.

Years ago I wrote a column in which I dared suggest that the black parents of any kid wearing a $200 pair of sneakers but had not one book in their house had no business complaining about how racist the education system is.

You’d have thought I’d gunned down Santa Claus at high noon on a sunny day. I got emails and letters, mostly with this theme: How dare I criticize poor black folks?

I dared because I came from a poor black family, one that struggled to get out of poverty and eventually did so.

I dared because my mother — on her laundress salary, mind you — somehow managed to buy her children a set of much-needed encyclopedias.

I dared because I know that we don’t help poor folks, especially poor black folks, by lowering our expectations of them.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

The 'War on Drugs' isn't worth the collateral damage

Gregory Kane

January 05, 12:00 AM January 05, 10:56 PM

For a while there, I was wondering if Darren Austin and his son Tyler Austin had smoked one joint too many.

On Jan. 1, a new law went into effect in Colorado: Residents of the state and those visiting from other states can now buy marijuana for other than medical reasons.

That means lifelong potheads can buy marijuana in Colorado just for the purpose of getting stoned.

News stories about the lines of people that queued up — in inclement weather — waiting to buy pot abounded. One story was about a father and son who drove their truck from Georgia to Colorado so they could buy pot legally.

“Out of their darned minds,” I thought, but, figuring there might be more to the story, I did some Googling.

Darren Austin is the dad. He’s 44 years old. Tyler, the son, is 21.

A New York Times story says one of the Austins drove from Georgia to Colorado and the other from North Carolina to Colorado “a few months ago ... and decided to stay.”

Yet another news story said both Austins drove from either Decatur or Augusta, Ga., to Colorado.

Whenever they got there — and where in Georgia they drove from — is up for debate. The bottom line is that both Austins were in Colorado on Jan. 1, ready and eager to talk to the media.

It’s a good thing they did, because I suspect quite a few folks were wondering if they’d lost their darned minds.

I did some more Googling. The distance from Georgia to Colorado is 1,625 miles. The drive takes 23 hours, 49 minutes.

Out-of-state visitors to Colorado can buy only a quarter-ounce of marijuana.

So here’s what some — perhaps many — people were thinking about the Austins: two clueless potheads decide to drive nearly 2,000 miles to buy a quarter ounce of marijuana each, that they can’t transport across state lines back to Georgia.

It was Darren Austin, more so than Tyler, who cleared up why they had made the long drive. And Daddy Austin swears it was about more than the pot.

“It’s a historical event,” Darren Austin said of being able to legally buy marijuana in Colorado. “Everyone should be here. This is going to be a turning point in the drug war, a beginning of the peace.”

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I’m as soured on the “War on Drugs” as Darren Austin is. (Yes, I’m afraid I’m one of those types of conservatives.)

What drove the nail in the coffin for me about the “War on Drugs” was an incident that occurred in Prince George’s County back in 2008. Some readers might recall it.

Cheye Calvo was the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md. One summer day, a county SWAT team kicked in the door of his home, fatally shot the family’s two black Labrador retrievers and forced Calvo and his terrified mother-in-law to lie flat on the floor.

Yes, it was a drug raid, but subsequent investigation revealed that the Calvos had nothing to do with the package of marijuana that had been mailed to their home.

It transpired that the parties responsible for the criminality had a scheme going: One would mail packages of drugs to a certain address, and another would retrieve it.

What was in the package that was sent to the Calvos’ home with neither their knowledge nor consent? You guessed it: marijuana.

I concluded then that the “War on Drugs” had become downright ludicrous. The mayor of a town and his mother-in-law terrorized not by criminals, but by law enforcement. Their two dogs shot dead.

All this to keep a package of marijuana off the streets.

Here’s what’s so absurd about the Calvo case: Everybody in Berwyn Heights, in Prince George’s County, in the state of Maryland and, indeed, in the entire nation who wanted to smoke a joint that night, smoked a joint that night!

I wouldn’t drive around the block to commemorate the legalization of pot, much less drive nearly 2,000 miles. But I’ll be downright giddy if what happened to the Calvos never happens to another citizen of the United States.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

The 2013 Chutzpah awards

Gregory Kane

January 02, 12:00 AM January 02, 07:59 AM

Happy New Year to all Washington Examiner readers.

And since it is a new year, that means it’s time to hand out my annual Chutzpah Awards for the year that just ended.

Chutzpah is defined as gall or audacity taken to the nth level. The classic and ultimate example of chutzpah is supposed to be the guy that murdered both his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he was an orphan.

This year’s list is a short one, but that doesn’t mean the winners are any less deserving. So, without further ado, here are the 2013 Chutzpah Award winners.

Fifth runner-up: Rapper Kanye West, for basically proclaiming himself the greatest entertainer in the universe, combining his name and Jesus Christ’s name to proclaim his tour “Yeezus” and embracing the Confederate flag as his own.

West, for those that don’t know, is African-American. The Confederate States of America, in that nation’s constitution, enshrined, specifically, “negro slavery” and made its existence all but inviolable.

Fourth runner-up: President Obama, for taking that selfie of himself during former South African President Nelson Mandela's memorial service.

With his cheesing, mugging and basic inappropriate conduct during the ceremony, Obama sent a message to the world: “I’m much more important than the occasion for which hundreds of dignitaries from around the world have gathered.”

That takes some chutzpah.

Third runner-up: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, for butting his nose in Baltimore’s affairs and presuming to lecture Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake about how to lower the number of homicides in that city.

O’Malley was mayor of Baltimore before he became governor of Maryland. And yes, he did indeed implement a crime-fighting strategy that ostensibly led to the number of murders being lowered.

The governor’s crime policy when he was mayor of Baltimore was, some critics charged, draconian and unconstitutional. And Baltimore’s homicide numbers continued to drop after the mayor that replaced O’Malley, Sheila Dixon, abandoned O’Malley’s jackboot policies.

Second runner-up: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Raymond Kelly, that city's police commissioner who's retiring.

O’Malley had nothing on either Bloomberg and Kelly when it came to draconian, unconstitutional police practices. Specifically, the Big Apple’s stop-and-frisk policy came under fire.

A federal judge ruled the policy racially biased and unconstitutional, which didn’t stop Bloomberg and Kelly from vigorously defending it.

The stop-and-frisk policy, they proclaimed, lowered the number of homicides and other crimes.

You mean that if officials turn a place into a police state, they can actually lower crime? No kidding.

First runner-up: Oprah Winfrey, for telling the world that racism in her country will disappear when all those old, white racists finally do us all the courtesy of dying.

Winfrey knows there exists a virulent racism in this country that has nothing to do with old, white racists. She knows about the Latino vs. black racism in Los Angeles.

She knows how some young blacks have been targeting whites in the “knockout game.” She knows there is black-on-Asian violence motivated by nothing but racism.

And she knows this new racism isn't going to die anytime soon.

The winners: Executives at A&E, for obvious reasons.

After “Duck Dynasty” reality television star Phil Robertson made comments offensive to gays, lesbians and blacks in a magazine interview, A&E Networks execs had this to say:

We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series "Duck Dynasty." His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.

Those same execs then decided, with brazen chutzpah, to kick that “LGBT community” to the curb, reinstate Robertson, and issue this statement:

After discussion with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming "Duck Dynasty" later this spring with the entire Robertson family. "Duck Dynasty" is not a show about one man’s views. It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family, a family that America has come to love.

Also some rubbish about its “core values” being “centered around creativity, inclusion and respect.”

The chutzpah of A&E honchos isn’t quite as brazen as that of the guy who murdered his parents, but it’s pretty darned close.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Follow the money to get to the bottom of the 'Duck Dynasty' saga

Gregory Kane

December 30, 12:00 AM December 30, 08:50 AM

The Phil Robertson saga gets curiouser and curiouser, does it not?

Robertson is one of several stars of the A&E's reality show “Duck Dynasty.” The show is a mega-hit, raking in millions for the network.

I’ve never watched the show — duck hunting and reality television simply not being my things — but I’ve read and heard that each episode concludes with the Robertson family gathering together in prayer.

Phil Robertson is a devout Christian and had no qualms expressing that in an interview he did with GQ Magazine.

Robertson said he believed homosexuality was a sin; other comments he made were not too friendly about gays and lesbians.

Anticipating the pressure that would come when people usually say such things, A&E honchos immediately suspended Robertson and issued this pious statement:

We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series "Duck Dynasty." His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.

If officials at A&E are true champions of the “LGBT community,” then they had better keep up with the times. The term now in vogue is LGBTQ, with the “Q” standing for “queer.”

We can only guess how many other letters will be added and what they’ll stand for.

Anyway, back to Robertson. A plethora of people rose to his defense, claiming that A&E officials violated his right to free speech.

Let’s clear up this foolishness right now. I’ve chided liberals in the past for not reading the Constitution, and it appears I might have to do the same with some conservatives. The Phil Robertson controversy is not and never was about a violation of his First Amendment rights.

The First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Congress had nothing to do with the Phil Robertson brouhaha. A&E is a private company. As such, the company has every right to suspend an employee that makes comments its executives might find offensive.

Other developments followed Robertson’s suspension that are grist for many a columnist’s mill. The Cracker Barrel Company yanked “Duck Dynasty” products from its shelves, only to quickly restock them after customers complained.

It seems that Cracker Barrel’s support of the LGBT/LGBTQ/LGBTQ-add-letter-of-your-choice-here community only lasted until they heard the sound of “cha-ching” cease.

Michael Eric Dyson, a black MSNBC on-air personality, couldn’t pass on the opportunity to do a little race-baiting.

“Phil Robertson and the ‘Duck Dynasty’ is part of a majority white supremacist culture that either consciously or unconsciously incubates hatred toward those who are different.”

Everybody got that? Watch enough “Duck Dynasty” episodes and you just might find yourself inexorably drawn to join a lynch mob.

Then came the piece de resistance: A&E officials decided to unsuspend Robertson. Honchos issued this statement:

After discussion with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming "Duck Dynasty" later this spring with the entire Robertson family. "Duck Dynasty" is not a show about one man’s views. It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family, a family that America has come to love.

Now, doesn’t that just warm your heart? Or does it make the cynic in you suspect that A&E officials had dollar signs in their eyes when they issued that statement?

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

How I spent my Christmas

Gregory Kane

December 25, 12:00 AM December 25, 10:19 PM

This is how I spent Christmas 2013:

I got up around 10:30ish. I prepared the stuffing for the Christmas turkey and shoved that bird in the oven at precisely 11:41 a.m.

Then – thank heavens for the Turner Classic Movie network – I watched films with religious themes until dinnertime.

The day left me pondering exactly what my favorite Christmas things are. At the risk of boring readers, here’s my list:

1. Favorite Christmas song: "The Little Drummer Boy," with the caveat that the Harry Simeon Chorale’s version is the only one that gets it done for me.

I love this version for several reasons. The song itself is a simple tale, simply told, and the Harry Simeon Chorale version tells it the simplest. The song, save for someone striking a triangle, is a cappella. It tells the story of a poor drummer boy that meets the Christ child in the manger. The boy is so poor that he “has no gift that’s fit to give a king.” So he offers to give the only gift he can: playing his drum.

And so he does. As the ox and lamb keep time, the boy plays and, according to the song, “plays his best for the Christ child.” When the drummer boy is done, the Christ child smiles at him.

The little drummer boy had little to give, but he gave what he could. If that doesn’t get to the essence of the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what does.

2. Favorite Christmas movie: There’s quite a list to choose from here. I suspect most people would go with “It’s A Wonderful Life,” which isn’t a bad choice at all.

There are any one of a number of film versions of Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol.” And then there’s “Miracle on 34th Street.” A relatively recent film – certainly more recent than the ones I’ve mentioned – is “A Christmas Story,” which has become a classic in its own right.

But my choice is “Ben-Hur.” It’s not normally thought of as a Christmas story. There’s certainly no jolly Santa cavorting around in a sleigh with his reindeer or anything else that might be described as, for lack of a better word, “Christmas-sy.”

Here’s what “Ben-Hur” does have going for it as a Christmas story. Every year around this time, some station somewhere will be airing “Ben-Hur.” And the novel on which the film is based is indeed subtitled “A Tale of the Christ.”

The 1959 version that starred Charlton Heston (and won 11 Oscars) opens with a scene of the Christ child being born in a manger. For me, that’s enough to make it a bona fide Christmas film. It’s easy to see why the 1959 “Ben-Hur” won 11 Academy Awards. Everything about the film is nearly perfect: the script, acting, cinematography and superb musical score. And the chariot race is easily the most exciting nine minutes ever put on film.

3. Favorite Christmas story: it’s tempting to go with Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Story,” but I found O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” to be a little bit more enjoyable. But both prove the adage: the novel or the short story is almost always better than the movie.

4. Favorite Christmas gift: getting that “Merry Christmas” phone call from my three grandkids who live out in Berkeley, Calif.

It’s been nearly three years since they’ve moved from Baltimore to Berkeley, which puts them a wee bit too close to Oakland, Calif., for my tastes. But they seem to enjoy it.

The grandkids – two of whom are also my best pals ever, in addition to being my bodyguards and kneecappers, at least when they were here – made that call around 7 p.m. EST.

It was the perfect ending to my Christmas 2013.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.