There he goes again...

It's late, and I really should beware the pitfalls of late-night blogging. But I can't let an opportunity pass to needle my favorite liberal curmudgeon, Don Gale.

Mr. Gale used to be a bigwig (as in an important person, not a world-famous blogger) in the Salt Lake media scene. He was the voice of the KSL editorial board, and for 20-plus years he harangued Utahns about their decidedly un-progressive attitudes. Since retiring, his disdain for conservatives and common folk has not diminished, and so the Deseret News has rewarded him with a regular editorial column.

The trouble is old Don is, well, getting old, and he is becoming less and less lucid, and more and more a parody of an aging New Deal/Great Society Liberal. In his latest column, he attacks Americans for their respect for the military, declaring that the Founding Fathers (Hippy Pacifists in their entirety, in case you were wondering) would have been dismayed by this unseemly burst of patriotism, apparently forgetting that Washington himself was a General in the Army, and most of the other Founding Fathers voted to appoint him to that office.

But wait, there's more. He declares that John Adams would have "shaken his head" at the Patriot Act, totally oblivious to the fact that President Adams enthusiastically signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made criticism of public officials illegal.

Not content with displaying his historical ignorance, Mr. Gale then asserts that Benjamin Franklin would have chided Americans for their scientific ignorance, suggesting that he would support the sale of irradiated food because it would be no different than microwaved food.

I agree that Franklin would have been a fan of irradiated food: However, a scientist like Franklin would have understood the difference between non-ionizing microwave radiation produced by electrical current, and ionizing gamma radiation produced by radioactive materials. Mr. Gale obviously does not.

Mr. Gale does, however, understand himself better than he knows, or at least admits. He begins his concluding paragraph by saying that "ignorance and fear are comfort zones for old people like me".

Couldn't have said it better myself.