"O, how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!"

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st,
O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!"

- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act 3, Scene 2

I saw a wonderful production of the rarely-staged Henry VIII tonight at the Folger Library in Washington D.C. In the third act, Cardinal Wolsey, the speaker above, is destroyed by Henry when it is discovered that he has been working for his own interests rather than for those of his king. In the face of his disgrace, Wolsey realizes that he has been in error: he ought to have been serving his country, his God and truth, not himself. In this realization, Wolsey finds peace.

The speech I transcribed above reached out into the audience at the theatre and grabbed me by the throat. These lines were written in the 17th century, and yet they speak eloquently to me today. How wretched are politicians who hang on Obama's favor? Let all the ends they aim at be GOD'S, COUNTRY'S and TRUTH'S.

And if they fall in their justice, then they ought not to fear: they fall as blessed martyrs for liberty.

"Hey teabaggers, you're racist and bigoted and I'm better than you are. Vote for me!"

It's just about a month until the midterm elections. The Democrats are running ads bragging about how they haven't been in line with Nancy Pelosi's agenda (whether it's true or not), Republicans are expected to take 50+ seats in the House of Representatives, and Tea Party candidates have rousted RINOs in many races around the country.

Meanwhile, the Democratic establishment think that the way to put their train back on track is to insult and demean the voters. John Kerry thinks that we're stupid and have a short attention span. Joe Biden tells his base to "stop whining." Bill Maher thinks that "almost all" of the opposition to President Obama's policies is racially motivated.

Look. Insulting everyone is not the way to go about this, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Kerry and Biden are so royally out of touch that they think it's the way to go. I'm not surprised by Bill Maher's line of crap, either, but it's disgusting for him to paint MOST OF THE COUNTRY with a racist brush.

Listen up, you self-important blowhard: Obama's race is LITERALLY the only thing I like about him. I think it's great for the country to have a black man as president. I, personally, wish heartily that it had been Alan Keyes. Here's the thing, though: his race was not a good enough reason for anyone to vote for him. Many admit that they did (I can't find a clip of Charles Payne admitting on Glenn Beck's show that he fell for the dream of a black man in the white house, and came to regret it almost immediately), and no one reviles those people for failing to vote in a colorblind manner. The resistance to Obama's agenda -- which is pretty much exclusively the redistribution of wealth -- is because it runs counter to America's values.

Keep it up, Dems. Keep telling the American people to their faces that they're stupid, racist bigots. You just see how many votes that gets you.