The Untouchables

The Untouchables
Friday, June 21, 2013
by Burt Prelutsky


Once I thought of referring to Obama’s appointees as the untouchables, I decided to check out Eliot Ness, who led the small squad of honest cops engaged in waging war on Al Capone. Although I had been a big fan of the original TV series and an even bigger fan of the movie, I really knew very little about Mr. Ness.

It seems Ness and his guys had a lot to do with shutting down Capone’s breweries, but very little with finally bringing “Scarface” down for tax evasion. But nobody ever suggested he was anything but a tough, honest, straight-arrow cop. Unfortunately, unlike the character portrayed by Robert Stack and, later, Kevin Costner, his life didn’t end with Capone’s heading off to federal prison.

In Ness’s post-FBI life, he was married three times, divorced twice, and went from one job to another. He was an electronic parts salesman, a clerk in a book store, sold frozen hamburger patties to restaurants and once even tried to get himself elected mayor of Cleveland, losing to Thomas Burke by a 2-1 margin. But, mainly he spent his time in bars, boozing and telling cock-and-bull stories to his fellow barflies.

So, at the end of the movie, when the young reporter asks Ness what he plans to do once Prohibition ends, and Ness says, “Have a drink,” he wasn’t kidding. Not too surprisingly, he died at the age of 54.

The new untouchables, who are led by Obama, include the likes of Eric Holder, Jay Carney and Kathleen Sebelius. Unlike Ness’s guys, these folks are untouchable because of executive privilege. Only Obama can rid us of them, but he appreciates their boundless devotion to him.

If the nation doesn’t share his opinion, that’s just tough. They had their chance last November, and they blew it.

Eric Holder came into office announcing that whites are afraid to speak honestly about race, portraying white people as bigots when it is he who has displayed his blatant racism by refusing to indict the Black Panthers for voter intimidation and by informing his agents that during his tenure the Department of Justice will only prosecute whites for hate crimes.

Jay Carney, I keep being told, is merely doing what a press secretary is expected to do; namely, put a good face on everything Obama does and says. In other words, the job description is to lie on a daily basis. Some press secretaries do it better (Tony Snow), while some, like Carney and Robert Gibbs, do it worse.

The problem, as I see it, is that the job should not exist in the first place. No president should have at his disposal a person who functions the same way as a criminal defense attorney. I say the president, no matter what his party affiliation may be, should take 30 minutes out of his day to face the White House press corps and answer questions. If he has time to play basketball and golf, hold galas for show biz celebrities, congratulate gay athletes for outing themselves and fly off every other day for a fund raiser, he has the time to answer questions, thus freeing Jay Carney to find honest work while he still has some slight chance of saving his soul.

Speaking of Carney and all those other people whose job is to lie on behalf of Obama, the State Department, the IRS and the CIA, it’s time we all quit pussyfooting around and stop calling them spokesmen. Lying is what they do, liars is what they are.

While we’re at it, let’s call able-bodied people collecting disability checks and well-to-do seniors collecting food stamps, welfare cheats.

Furthermore, let us be honest enough to call a freak a freak. After all, unless you believe that prisoners are entitled to have gender-altering surgery on the taxpayer’s dime or that employers shouldn’t be allowed to deny employment to transvestites or to those who choose to adorn themselves with metal hoops, studs and spikes in their noses, cheeks and tongues, they’ll label you a bigot or worse.

As for Kathleen Sebelius, who, when last heard from, was denying a 10-year-old dying child the right to be on a list for those requiring a donated organ, she is tailor-made for this administration. Who better to be the Secretary of Health and Human Resources than a woman who looks like the twin sister of Snow White’s stepmother? When she’s not denying a little girl the right to receive a lung that might save her life, Sebelius no doubt spends her spare time cackling madly and poisoning apples.

What this country needs is a sober Eliot Ness, eager to clean up the corruption in Washington. What it has, unfortunately, is Barack Obama, a Marxist airhead who is so infatuated with himself that in high school, I’m willing to bet, he invited himself to the prom.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.