GOP Vixen

NRO: Just an MSM hostage

Check out my National Review Online column today as I ruminate upon being a conservative in the mainstream media -- and whether this means I have the Stockholm syndrome. A snippet:

"It sometimes seems to me that it would be easier to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a bar mitzvah than to defend the press to fellow conservatives.

I’ve tried it before, penning a tongue-in-cheek column about the insidious blogosphere acronym MSM (mainstream media), only to be pelted with FU and SOB initialism from offended right-leaning readers.

As a career journalist and lifelong Republican, I’ve often found myself caught between an elephant and a newspaper rack. How does one justify happily being a press-pass-carrying member of all that conservatives have come to detest?

Recently, a reader gently explained my problem to me: I’m suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.

Interestingly enough, every time the latest Iraq kidnapping tale hits the wires, my journalism colleagues note that I would make a horrible hostage. Between demanding a mirror to fix my hair before the requisite al Jazeera video and flinging my best flippant Arabic phrases at the New Balance-clad captors, I would, estimate my colleagues, be dead within ten minutes.

But being a hostage of the liberal media ain’t half-bad. Sure, one must endure sleep deprivation, and sources occasionally would like to rip your fingernails out, but newsrooms feed hostages well, with a steady supply of chips and salsa, and free pizza provided on nights of elections and national disasters. These are the people with whom I laugh, cry, drink, the people with whom I spend my holidays and watch televised police pursuits. Every day I willingly return for more.

But the Stockholm syndrome isn’t just about being comfortable in a hostage situation. It’s about developing loyalty to your captors. ..."

Read the whole thing! Then let it fly!

By the way, you guys may have noticed that I never use the MSM almost-acronym here. To tell you the truth, it just makes me laugh because it's so close to another acronym. Hey, sick journalist mind.

NRO: Fine, I'm a warmonger ... and I love it!

Check out my column on National Review Online today! I'll just jump right into it here:

"After years of supporting war, invasions, occupations, limited skirmishes, and terse verbal exchanges, I have come to grips with the label lobbed at me by leftists like rocket-propelled grenades: I am a warmonger.

In fact, the antiwar contingent was aware of my warmongering tendencies before I was. Last fall, I wrote a column advocating that people get their heads out of the sand and acknowledge the need to do something about Iran. I never said exactly what that something should be, which could range from carpet bombing to harsh language to Jimmy Carter campfire singalongs. Yet a letter writer saw right through my lack of a war declaration:

You insane piece of s**t. You want endless war for the sake of all the oppressed peoples of the world?

Democracy in Iraq, Iran, or whatever foreign cesspool you would like our boys to die liberating isn’t worth the fingernail of one American soldier. If you had a conscience or even half a brain, you’d realize that.

I can try, futilely, to explain to these sorts the feelings of moral responsibility, national security, or just plain common sense that drive my warmongering, but it is to little avail. They’ve got my number. So it’s time for me to admit my machinations. ..."

Along with confessing my warmongering, I also confess about which places I'd love to invade next:

"... Tops on the list is definitely Iran. I love the Iranian people, and global opposition to the mullahs is dedicated and vast, but that little Nazi turkey has to go. In fact, I wouldn’t just like to topple the regime in Iran, but I’d like to make Mahmoud Ahmadinejad my house slave. (That makes me a warmonger and an ACLU nightmare.) Lockdown at Gitmo would look like a Carnival Cruise after Mahmoud was finished buffing and organizing my shoe collection. Every day he’d have to watch Schindler’s List. And Iranians would be able to have fun again without fear of being smacked by religious police. ..."

You know you wanna read the rest!

(And you know you want to check out the hot stuff in the GOP Vixen store -- by God, was that an utterly shameless plug or what??)

UPDATE: To address all of the "if you're so pro-war, why don't you enlist" letters -- I did try when I was 20. I took the ASVAB (and got 96%!) with the goal of going into military intelligence. Even hung out at the Defense Language Institute. But got disqualified for a med reason. So I became a reckless journalist who, yes, sees all of this war stuff. And I'd still like to make Mahmoud my house slave. In a fluffy pink apron.

UPDATE NUMERO DOS: They say you're nobody until someone loves you. Conversely, you know a column is something when a super-leftist calls you the "c" word. So a shout out to reader Adam Roberts for doing just so!!

NRO: Christmas in the newsroom

As Ed Asner astutely said, I'm prolific. So go check out my newest column at National Review Online, a heartwarming (debatably) tale of Christmases in the newsroom. A sample:

"... Once again, the newsroom is decked out in bits of tinsel, the menorah is ready to go, and the Christmas tree is lit — and leaning slightly to the left. As people rip into presents on Christmas morning, editors tearing into stories still pepper newsrooms. Reporters are still poking around town — and earning time-and-a-half, mind you — and designers are still wrapping up the paper. People exclaim 'You work on Christmas?' in shock, without pausing to think that a newspaper does arrive on their doorstep early on Dec. 26. But the journalist’s Christmas is far from a dreary day of humbug — in fact, holidays spent with this dysfunctional family can be more memorable than the issue produced that day.

Journalists — who by nature hold more places on the 'naughty' list than the 'nice' one — can’t wait for Christmas to come after several weeks of story saturation on tree trimmings, 'Santa sightings' (your typical cynical journalist stopped believing in the jolly guy at about age 2), caroling at senior centers, and celebrities taking an hour to scoop peas onto a homeless person’s plate for the clicking cameras. The editor's holiday season dawns with the first rewriting of 'Tis the season' and other cliché headlines. The reporter's holiday season is typically ushered in by the local fire department’s educational burning-bush-in-the-living-room demonstration. Taking an adequately dry Christmas tree and adding fake presents around the base, the firefighters light it to show how quickly the tree could turn into a yuletide inferno. At this point, journalists whose offices lack central heating move in closer, palms outstretched to soak up the warmth. ..."

Read the whole thing. I'm already getting some funny e-mail responses from other journalists:

"... The one thing I always remember about Christmas in the newsroom is that the police monitors were usually quiet until late afternoon or early evening, when people and extended families who had been drinking and only saw each other once a year remembered why they only saw each other once a year ..."

"... Someone always brought champagne - or told us it was - and we would drink out of disgustingly plastic cups...we would  vote on the cheesiest christmas photo and we would always try to smuggle in something truly- but uncatchably - vulgar into a page one story as a sign of our holiday togetherness."

And if you're in a Christmas mood and haven't seen it already, go check out my Daily News Christmas column, too.

Confessions of a Republican Journalist: Crimefighter, Part 2

Like I said in the last installment, Nancy Drew is the coolest ever. Hence she provided perfect inspiration to bring out my inner crimefighter. Crimefighter blended with my natural habitat: shopping. Full-contact shopping.

While in college doing semester-long projects on John Wayne Gacy and the like, I wanted a job that somewhat fit my major. My semester working at the campus police department, though, consisted of parking tickets, little confrontation, and a lot of boredom. That would soon end when, at age 19, I responded to an ad for an “asset protection agent” at what is now RiteAid drugstores. I was quickly hired to work the stores undercover and unarmed, pretending to shop, spotting shoplifters and nabbing them after they walked out the door.

A former military policeman was my trainer. He showed me how to position oneself at the end of an aisle to be able to look down that aisle without being spotted. These drugstores had no cameras at the time, so it was all floor work. Jack had a zillion war stories from years in the loss prevention business. He suggested carrying an item to make it look more like we were shopping -- I noticed he always carried a bottle of VO5 shampoo, even though he was bald.

The arrest rates were high in these stores, so it usually wasn’t a boring eight-hour shift strolling the aisles. For every shoplifter who was spotted, there were about five who got away, as estimated by the trail of wrappers left behind. Asset protection agents had to witness all of these elements to make an arrest: selection, concealment, continuous observation from the point of concealment (because sometimes shoplifters chicken out and dump the product in the store before leaving), passing the registers without paying, exiting the store. Some didn’t bother to conceal, known as the grab-and-runs. Men are generally quicker shoplifters; women can take half an hour or more. My first arrest was an 18-year-old guy stealing condoms. “Bet I ruined your Friday night, huh?” I said as I led him to the back of the store. “Yeah, yeah, you did,” he groaned.

Some of the stores were in heavily minority neighborhoods, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. But I had my tricks to be inconspicuous: while pretending to be a shopper, I would often carry a package of Always maxi pads -- because if a man looks at a woman and sees her carrying those, he gets embarrassed and turns away fast. That way, the shoplifter is less likely to recognize you on the other side of the store and wonder if he's being followed. Always also aren't breakable, so when I ran out the door after a suspect I could fling them to the side and go make the arrest. However, at the end of the day, the store manager would often call me over to the front door, annoyed because there were five packs of Always strewn around the store entrance.

The job was a wee bit hazardous, and not just the time I had to pick 15 stolen fishing lures out of a shoplifter's clothes.

One night I ran after a shoplifter in a dark parking lot. He spun around to confront me and halfway pulled a gun out from under his jacket, but paused and fled as he saw other store employees rush toward us. Another rainy evening I chased a shoplifter out the door and across the street when suddenly he spun around and lunged at me with a hypodermic needle; I jumped out of the way and avoided contact. (And in this humble columnist's opinion, anyone who tries to stab a person with a tainted needle should never get out of prison, no matter what liberals might say -- "Oh, but he's just a poor drug addict... he didn't know what he was doing." Then if he can't control potentially murderous behavior he shouldn't be on the street, should he?)

Then there was the incident that temporarily put my loss prevention career on hold. I spotted a woman stealing a pack of underwear -- her purse was in the top of the shopping cart, she placed the package on top, rounded a few aisles, unzipped the purse and slipped the product in, then abandoned the shopping cart and left the store. By the time I caught up with her, she was to her car and opening the door. She denied stealing, I grabbed her purse, and next thing she was in her car, slamming the door on my arm and backing out of the parking place -- dragging me along, as my arm was still caught in the door. I yelled and fought, got released, and shouted her license plate number to an approaching employee as she drove off.

The woman was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, strong-arm robbery and petty theft with priors. She had four prior felony convictions and had served time in prison. We went to trial on the three felonies she faced in my case. When my day came to testify, I walked into the courtroom and noticed it wasn’t quite a jury of her peers but of my peers -- a lot of college-age jurors.

The snarky defense attorney badgered me about my age, my experience, and accused me of telling police that the suspect had orange hair. “No,” I calmly corrected him, “I said she had a bad dye job.”

The jury snickered.

The lawyer focused on the stolen underwear. I had put in my report that she had first opened a package, and unfolded and held up a pair of underwear before deciding which ones she wanted to steal. “What color were they?” the lawyer asked about the unfolded pair.

“I don’t remember,” I responded.

“What do you remember about them?” he continued.

“They were big,” I replied. Louder snickers from the jury.

The defense attorney then focused on the arrest itself. I smiled at him measuredly from the witness stand as he quizzed me about what I said to the suspect after she began scuffling with me. “I said, ‘Give me the stuff,’” I responded.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that what you really said?”

“No, I said, ‘Give me the f*#@ing stuff.’”

“Do you talk to your mother like that?” the defense attorney snapped.

That was not kosher. I looked over at the prosecutor, whose wife had just had a baby, and saw he was now practically dozing in court. I turned to the judge. “Can he ask me that?”

The judge glared at the prosecutor. “Objection?”

The prosecutor stirred. “Um, yeah... objection... irrelevant, badgering the witness...”

“Sustained,” the judge said.

So with a little of my backseat lawyering, she was convicted on all three counts. But the judge gave her probation despite her priors. At sentencing, her whole trashy family was there, and one said to me “Better luck next time!” as they filed out of the courtroom. The woman even used her 5-year-old grandson as a "character witness," making him plea "Please don't send my grandma to jail" to the judge. Nice.

With my arm injury I was out of commission for a bit, and worked at a job taking severely developmentally disabled adults to the park and such. After one schizo slammed my head into a car window, though, I figured I was much safer with the three-strikers in retail. So at age 21 I went into the loss prevention department at Tower Records.

Tower was a truly cool place to work. My partner was a stocky, streetwise Latino, and with my collegiate ditz hair-twirling routine we were able to work the store perfectly, because shoplifters never thought we were a team. We hid two-way radios in our clothes and had an office with a camera system to assist us. There was even a hidden door that led to a secret platform with a bit of one-way glass above the adult book section, where thefts aplenty occurred. We worked well together, except the time we were pinning a fighting suspect to the wall outside the store entrance and my partner accidentally gave me a black eye with a flying elbow.

Again, this job was unarmed, but at least we got to use handcuffs. Once you got a suspect inside the back office, though, the first task was to check them for weapons. And no one wants to get poked with a needle, so you would ask first if they had any sharp objects.

“Yeah,” one gangbanger shoplifter I’d just caught told me, “I got a knife.” He whipped out a 10-inch hunting knife that had been concealed in his clothes.

Gulp. “OK,” I said. “That’s cool. Let’s just put that over here until we’re done, all right?” I took the knife from him and put the blade as far on the other side of me as possible while we proceeded with his paperwork.

And though there was no distinct profile of shoplifters in terms of gender or race in our arrest records, if one needed a bust one would just watch the rap aisle. One day I was standing in the rap aisle, picked up a 2Pac tape, looked at it and put it back on the shelf.

“Go ahead, take it,” the shopper standing next to me said softly. “I won’t tell no one.”

“Oh, I can’t do that!” I said, adding a bit of hair twirling. “I’d get caught!”

“Naw, man,” he said. “Me and my friends do it here all the time!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, man.”

Dammit. I left the aisle and ran back to the cameras in the loss prevention office. If he shoplifted now and I arrested him, he could claim entrapment because of the conversation we’d had. So I tried to burn him out, so to speak. When he started to pick at a cassette wrapper, I used the store’s intercom: “Security, area three.” Who knows what area three was. But he got a bit nervous and eventually left the store with his friends.

Loss prevention was a cool way to make a living -- getting to satisfy your inner action hero with spying, chases and arrests. And I learned a few things about human nature, as well.

First, I learned that people can be really gross. In the drugstores I manned, I witnessed people uncapping deodorant, sticking their hand up their shirt and swiping the stick in their armpits, then capping the stick and returning it to the shelf. “Never buy the first deodorant on the shelf,'' warned the loss prevention trainer on my first day. I also was warned against the unpackaged hairbrushes -- a warning that became bleak reality when I saw a guy try to pull one through his matted hair, blow it off, and drop it back into the bin.

Second, I learned that how a child who shoplifts is treated once caught can be an important indicator of future criminality. The kids who begged us to send them to jail instead of calling the parents; the parents who were fuming, embarrassed, apologized and made the kid beg the store's forgiveness as they dragged him or her away -- I always felt they had a chance. But the parents who blamed us for framing their kid as the child sat there and smugly smirked, or refused to sign the release -- I always felt like calling county and making an age-18 reservation for little Johnny.

And third, I learned that shoplifters are not as innocuous as one may think. Many are on their second or third strike and will do anything to keep from being caught, including beating a loss prevention agent to within an inch of his or her life. My partner at Tower confronted some young guys who had stolen a rap CD one evening. They pulled a gun on him; he said, “It's yours,'' and went back toward the front door. But the delinquents went after him and rammed his head repeatedly against a metal bicycle rack. Police helicopters were called out to catch the suspects. It was my night off.

I also learned how fun being undercover is. I truly got some sort of Nancy Drew/Jennifer Garner itch out of my system with the occasional flying tackle (except the time I missed the shoplifter and went skidding across the pavement -- when I was wearing shorts) and am glad that about 200 criminals got marks on their records thanks to my snooping. After two years of skinned knees and black eyes, I moved on to journalism, where I had to duck for different reasons.

And what else would newspapers put me on but the crime beat? More in the next segment!

Confessions of a Republican journalist: Crimefighter, Part 1

Nancy Drew is the coolest. Seriously. She was smart, had a cool car, and even busting criminals her hair always looked good. Her friends were cool, too, and almost as good at snooping as she was; her boyfriend was totally supportive when she wanted to prowl through abandoned castles in search of the bad guys. She was unmatched until “Alias” came on the air and CIA diva Sydney Bristow became the modern butt-kicking version of Nancy Drew.

So growing up, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I had my sights set on the FBI, and soaked up TV shows such as “Magnum P.I.” and “Simon & Simon.” I dreamed of wearing one of those blue windbreakers with “FBI” emblazoned in yellow on the back and kicking some bad guy’s door down -- all the while having good-looking hair, of course. So when I graduated from high school there wasn’t any question what I’d study in college: criminology. (Of course, I did have a few of the fad major changes that lasted about a week each: the not exceptionally useful philosophy major, the marginally useful and rather hippie peace-and-conflict studies major, and the really useless vocal studies music major that could have led to a rousing cabaret career.)

I never really liked going to most of my other classes -- evidenced by my attendance record -- but loved my criminology classes. Most of the professors would begin the semester by warning students that if you follow this career, you’ll have a miserable life -- later indicating they were just trying to weed out the wimps. I quickly learned the program’s motto: there’s a fine line between criminal and criminologist. I joined the criminology fraternity (professional frats being coed), which had a monthlong assassination game they’d play on campus with water guns -- if you saw another crim frat member between classes, try to shoot them. Last person standing at the end of the month won. Curiously enough, the favored song of the fraternity was Ice T’s “Cop Killer.” One semester I dated another crim major whose walls were covered with stolen street signs. He was apparently really good at it.

In my second semester, I joined the campus police department as a parking officer. Also known as, one of the very hated people who tickets cars without proper on-campus permits. I also worked some evenings as a community service officer, providing security for campus hip-hop fests and the like. One evening I showed up at the station in my uniform, hair up in a ponytail, equipped with a pink Eveready flashlight. “What the hell is that, your Barbie flashlight?” the sergeant barked. The Barbie nickname henceforth stuck with the supervisor, maybe because in the tradition of Nancy Drew I made sure my hair always looked good.

The other students who worked at the police department, mostly criminology majors, were great to get in trouble with. One of the students taught me how to shoot. The first gun I ever shot was an automatic AR-15 with laser sights (jealous, Barbara Boxer?), blasting cans off stumps on a farm. The next was a 12-gauge shotgun, which nearly knocked me off my feet. And finally, I got used to a plain ol’ 9mm. I don’t remember if Nancy Drew ever packed heat, but I’m sure she knew how to lock ’n’ load -- in full compliance with the NRA safety manual, of course.

I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in law enforcement, so I took every internship, tour, ride-along I could get. The first winter break in college I interned (read: student slave) in the criminal section of the county clerk’s office. The work was so boring that I sat in the corner of the file room and read the big, juicy files. One day they sent me over to the jail for a tour. If any woman ever needs a shot of self-esteem, visit a lockup. These guys spend all day grooming and preening in front of mirrors -- hours, the guards told me -- just for that special occasion of a woman walking through the halls. Not much to be said for being an object of their affection, though. (Yet for a while nearly everyone who read my columns was incarcerated -- all of my fan mail at my then-newspaper would have the prisoner ID number on the return address.)

I also unfortunately dated some cops: No offense to blog readers in the law enforcement profession, but there are two kinds of cops -- ones who do it because they really care about humanity and busting bad guys, and ones who get high from carrying a gun and hope the badge helps them score chicks. My best friend from high school objected to the idea of dating cops. Until one day she got pulled over, and the cop happened to be one with whom I’d had one lunch date months before. “Don’t I know you?” he asked her after asking for her license and registration. “You went out with my friend Bridget,” she replied. She got off with a warning even though she’d been going 20 mph over the speed limit. I also had one date with a supervisor at Corcoran state prison, whose idea of wooing was trying to regale me with first-person tales of Charles Manson. (“Yeah, some days Charlie will be perfectly normal and chats with me... then some days he’s totally nuts...”) One deputy sheriff I dated took me on a ride-along where I got to duck behind his cruiser as a pipe bomb detonated in a parking lot.

But the criminology major boyfriend with the stolen street signs invited me to go play paintball with his fraternity one weekend. This was like Nancy Drew meets Rambo! I went down to the Army supply store and found fatigues and boots; I even rifled through a box of name tags until I found one that said “JOHNSON,” and sewed it onto the jacket. When I showed up that morning in perfect paintball fashion -- hair looking great and pulled back in a coordinating camouflage ponytail holder -- the guys all laughed. But I would not let them disparage my combat skills.

We went down to a wooded area near the foot of a local dam. I strapped on my face protection, grabbed a gun filled with orange and yellow spherical ammo, and dove into the brush for the first round of combat. It’s rather difficult to see who you’re taking down when you’re face-first in the dirt, but I know I made some hits. And I lasted rather long for a novice. But then a paintball flew through my face and head guards and smacked me in the head. After that round, my boyfriend was picking pieces of paintball out my once-good-looking hair. And I challenged him to a round of one-on-one paintball, ducking around trees and brush with occasional pops of fire unlike the full-scale assault of earlier. He won, I’m ashamed to say, shooting me in the upper arm and leaving a big bruise. There’s a reason they advise wearing multiple layers of clothing when playing paintball; it just didn’t really go with my perfect camo outfit.

But between these experiences and adventures covering the cops and courts beat as a journalist, I held a job in which I was a true crimefighter, where I was undercover and nabbed about 200 criminals in nearly two years. Those juicy stories in the next segments...

Heartwarming liberal story

So tonight I went to the farewell party of a colleague -- he and his wife are soon fleeing the state. Now, said colleague is a cool guy but drove me nuts before the last presidential election, from little random anti-Bush comments to big random anti-Bush comments. As everybody was saying goodbye at TGI Friday's at last call, he told me, "I love your writing. Even though you're Republican. You're making me start to think like you." (To which the rest of us replied, "Scary!")

Touching, eh? (sniff)

Confessions of a Republican Journalist: Anti-terror, pro-Israel, 'nuf said!

If there's one unwritten rule in newsrooms, it's that breaking news happens just as you're about to shut down the computer, toss Diet Coke cans near the garbage and call it a night. On the West Coast, at least, that breaking news is usually from the Middle East -- as papers wrap up first editions, suicide bombers are just starting to climb aboard buses in Israel, terrorists fresh from the night's slumber.

Yasser Arafat’s Intifada No. 2 brought much of the same late-breaking news -- suicide bomber blows up some poor Israelis having a bite to eat or shopping; Israel retaliates with a well-aimed missile up the arse of the latest Hamas leader.

Breaking news usually means scrapping a less important story for the new piece, or shuffling stories around to find a home for the news. Editions are chased; editors get bleary-eyed as they wait for the Associated Press to write enough inches on the bombing to fill a news hole.

At home, I handle breaking news by snuggling on the couch with a down throw, in fuzzy jammies, fixating on Fox News. Add cordless and cell phones at hand to make or receive calls based on the gravity of the news event -- particularly handy for spreading the word about hour-long car chases through L.A. that wind up in a standoff outside your neighborhood 7-Eleven.

After Egypt held a state funeral for Arafat, he was flown back via helicopter to his Ramallah, West Bank, compound, also known as the Muqata. A dignified ceremony was to be held among Palestinian leaders at his gravesite, then Arafat would be parked forever in the spot that used to boast the compound’s parking lot. But Palestinians started pouring over the walls, ripping apart the barbed wire, dangling from ledges and crowded on rooftops and walls. Quickly the place was packed with thousands of people.

I never really thought Arafat was going to be buried in the first place. As headlines came out proclaiming “Arafat still alive; funeral planned Friday,” it seemed there was a little confusion about life and death as related to the PLO leader, as everyone predicted the Palestinian reaction to his death would be unpredictable. I predicted they’d pull a “Weekend at Bernie’s”: Arafat would be dead for a month or so as they worked out PLO business, but they’d tug the stocking cap over his head and make him wave and blow kisses from the hospital window. They could have even taken him on a Cannes vacation.

“We can’t see how the Palestinian security forces are going to control this crowd,” the West Bank correspondent shouted over the din of the mob on TV. “After all, they are unarmed!”

POP ... POP ... POP.

Hah. Not so unarmed now.

After camera shots confirmed that it was indeed the unarmed Palestinian police firing into the air, new guests showed up to crash the party -- first the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, in full hooded dress and fully armed, then a band of Hamas, in the same goofy regalia and waving swords and machine guns.

“Uh-oh,” the reporter groaned, “Palestinians were warned not to wear masks or bring weapons into the facility!”

This wasn’t a masquerade burial? It had the atmosphere of a party, and the militant brigades waltzed in like the A-listers at the prom. It took a long time and a lot of bullets from the unarmed Palestinian police to get the crowd to clear holes for two of the three helicopters to land, and even longer for the crowd to back off from the helicopters to even allow them to unload Arafat’s casket. The newly appointed interim leader, Mahmoud Abbas, poked his head out of a helicopter door, waving his arm and yelling out at the crowd; nobody listened to him. I stayed up waiting to see if the crowd would try to pull apart the casket and the body like the Ayatollah Khomeni’s farewell to arms, but Yasser made it to the parking lot in one piece.

“One has to ask -- if the Palestinians have no control over this situation, how will they be at keeping peace in their territories?” the reporter mused.

I’ll take a stab at that question!

Days after the Muqata mosh pit, Abbas and others had filled a mourning tent for Arafat when gunmen burst in and tried to kill their new leader. Then, as leaders tried to set up elections to determine a permanent Arafat replacement, the most popular candidate in the polls for a time was Marwan al-Barghouti, in an Israeli prison serving five life terms for five Israeli murders. So how is this guy supposed to rule, slip pieces of policy out with the laundry truck? Tunnel under a wall to make cabinet meetings?

It’s dumb ideas like this that make me think the Palestinian majority really does want to tunnel its dreams of a state into the ground. After al-Barghouti finishes his fifth life and is ready to run a state, it would probably be the twelfth of never for any sort of peace process. You can’t have a peace process when a population lifts up a man who murders five civilians or takes aim (literally) at anybody who dares broker a truce with the neighbors. (And we’re not talking about the nutter who shot Yitzhak Rabin.)

I wasn’t always interested in what was going on in the Middle East. At the time the Oslo Accords were signed, I was entering my freshman year of college and paid attention to little. But I had one high school friend, Jackie, who did her best to remind everyone of the Holy Land situation: she often wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of a fighter jet, and the words “Don’t worry, America -- Israel’s behind you!”

Now, after all these nights of breaking news, paying attention, and getting to know groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and JINSA, this Irish-Catholic is so supportive of Israel that I’m nearly an honorary Jew.

The Mideast crisis is worthy of a book, not just a blog post, and it could take many years off my life going into the history of the conflict, who’s done what to piss who off and who was justified and who should rot in hell and why. But I will never accept the rationalization some Americans -- including some colleagues -- give for Palestinian suicide bombings, swearing that desperation drove these jacked-up 19-year-olds to strap a nail-filled (to increase casualties) bomb on their chest and take out men, women and children eating pizza or dancing at a disco. This cop-out is far from rational. It’s the same kind of rationale that would account for suicide hijackers flying into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Desperation. Evil America and Israel. Anything goes.

And what rational person would believe that, if you blow up a Greek Orthodox monk or a little old lady at the bus stop in the name of jihad, there will actually be 72 virgins waiting on high to do your bidding? Can an irrational population even run a state?

The Palestinians didn’t exactly have help from Arafat in reaching any degree of rationality. When he was handed the West Bank, Gaza and a chunk of Jerusalem on a plate at Camp David, he rejected the deal and left the meeting without putting forth a counteroffer.

Why? He didn’t want to settle with Israel. Then he wouldn’t be the fearless warrior fighting the evil oppressors anymore, and what kind of martyr would that make?

Even as Arafat was ill for weeks before he died, he never put any plans into place for a smooth succession of power. Why would a megalomaniac lower himself to see that anyone was fit to fill his shoes?

When Arafat “renounced” terrorism in 1988, he also publicly recognized Israel’s right to exist alongside a Palestinian state. But his election as president the next year was for a Palestine that would wipe its shoes on top of Israel -- in other words, no Israel -- and if suicide bombings conducted by his Fatah movement’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade aren’t terrorism, what is? Oh, right, it’s Intifada.

Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

WHY?

The recent documentary “Relentless” showed Arafat’s double-speak: talking about a peace process in English for American cameras, then speaking in Arabic on Palestinian television about getting rid of the Jews. Nice.

And that wasn’t the only perk of Palestinian TV displayed in the film. Seven-year-olds were on programs describing how they wanted to be a “martyr” -- murderer -- when they grew up. Kids were getting excited about killing Israeli kids; these Palestinian kids were being given textbooks that don‘t even show the existence of the Israeli state. And this martyrdom was encouraged on a children’s show, sort of a homicidal Romper Room.

After the film was shown at a festival last year, one of the makers of the documentary fielded questions from the audience, first adding a footnote to the footage.

“Remember the host of that children’s program?” he said. “She blew herself up in Jerusalem last week.” Fortunately, she was my favorite kind of suicide bomber, the kind who doesn’t manage to take any victims with them. Do the flunkies still get martyr status? And do female suicide bombers get promised 72 male virgins?

So it’s a pretty hopeless situation when Islamic Jihad and Hamas are seen as the cool guys, but the Israelis have the cooler military. It ends up looking like some peon vs. corporate giant match-up, a David vs. Goliath oppression to the rest of the world, with militants openly condemned but also glorified.

“I have no problems with telling the world what Yasser Arafat really is, a supporter of terrorism, somebody that's done nothing,” Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center once said on Alan Keyes’ show. “He's, if anything, encouraged terrorism. He knows the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad. He could have arrested them. He could have closed their offices. He never wanted to do that.”

So Arafat didn’t get to be buried in Jerusalem as he so desired, wound up in a parking lot with masked goons dancing around his grave, firing bullets into the air without taking into account that what goes up must come down. This leader revered by so many and reviled by even more -- hopefully -- left his Palestinians in as much chaos as before. And as the Palestinians torch synagogues in Gaza and Hamas vows to continue its jihad in the West Bank and Jerusalem, chaos reigns.

Confessions of a Republican Journalist: Election flashbacks

John Kerry had just been projected winner in the state of Vermont, and the first rumblings began to spread throughout the newsroom.

"When’s the pizza coming?"

George W. Bush had just been awarded West Virginia’s electoral votes by CNN when a message flashed across the top of my computer screen: "Do you know what time pizza comes?"

It turns out that the most exciting night in newsrooms also heralds the rare occasion of free food provided by the company. Along with a selection of pizzas thrown onto the conference room table with some paper plates and napkins, two-liter bottles of soda wait to be cracked open. Election night 2004 was exceptional as fresh disposable cups were also provided for the soda.

The only other night besides elections I can remember being fed pizza by the newspaper was on Sept. 11, 2001. The pies’ arrival was code for "nobody better even think of leaving their desks." On election nights -- be they presidential, gubernatorial, mayoral or congressional races -- greasy pepperoni and sausage is designed to keep editors sated to stay in that office until God knows when.

When the deliveryman finally arrived the evening of Nov. 2, 2004, polls had closed in the Midwest and the editorial staffers were extremely cranky. They scattered from their desks like ants who’d just had their hill kicked over, and lined up eagerly at the door to the conference room. This is what it was all about.

I’d been witness to several elections, gone to several parties, walked several precincts in a non-press capacity. On gubernatorial election night 1998, reporting at my first daily paper, I first headed to the Republican victory party, which was rather subdued as GOP candidate Dan Lungren was losing. As I interviewed people, I wished I could toss the notebook away and join the party, that I could wipe away the stigma of being a journalist and ease the minds of fellow Republicans who eyed me suspiciously. I was new in town, and nobody knew if I would slant the story to something like, "Suicidal GOPs watch party go down the tubes as they party..."

The next stop was the Democrats' shindig. As I walked into the building, I could feel cold stares and venomous glances from neo-Socialists and tree huggers. Did I forget to leave my voter registration at the door? How would they assume I was the enemy? I was the press, for God’s sake!

I found the local party chairman, got some quick quotes about Republicans destroying the environment and being evil to farm workers, and headed back to my car parked just outside the door. As a few stragglers in the parking lot shot more evil looks my way, I realized I had forgotten to take the "Lungren for Governor" sticker off my back window.

Well ... maybe I didn't forget.

For the 2000 presidential election, I was a news editor at another daily newspaper. The months leading up to the Bush-Gore showdown had been heated at best, homicidal at worst, and there were only a handful of non-closeted conservatives in the newsroom. The assistant managing editor had issued a moratorium on political talk out of a desire to prevent fisticuffs -- though he, an avowed Republican in his 20s, was a master at stirring the kettle and instigating verbal brawls. (I really looked up to him.) After Al Gore's Buddhist fund-raising scandal tarnished his campaign, this editor would fold his hands and bow reverently whenever he encountered the very liberal graphic design chief. She would either accept the invitation to debate or storm off in a huff -- she never wanted to say Buddhist prayers with the Jewish editor.

After we'd had our free pizza that night, it was time to sit back and see who the winner was. I sat by a small TV, watching returns come in and seeing networks compete over who could call a state first, an election-night malady that led to the debut of the Cautious News Network four years later. The conservative editor kept messaging me from his office as I watched pundits draw on electoral maps in play-by-play fashion. "What's going on?" he was asking as I would relay back the latest news. Then the Florida fracas began. "Talk to me, talk to me," he hurriedly messaged, not wanting to huddle in front of the TV, not wanting to look stressed and anxious in front of the liberals.

After Pizza Hut had turned to heartburn, CNN called the election for Bush. I screamed with glee and hugged a registered independent, the closest ally in a celebratory moment. The rest of the newsroom was in a dead hush.

The conservative assistant managing editor -- abiding by his own moratorium -- ran over waving his arms: "Shhh! SHHH!!"

What headline would the paper go with? One editor that night suggested "Bush by a hair." Another dirtier-minded editor had to explain to him why that wasn't a good idea.

And as semi-digested pizza began rising in the stomachs of newsroom Democrats, my indigestion had suddenly calmed.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to Gore's concession speech: he changed his mind, turned the car around and his personal electoral purgatory became recount hell for the whole nation. And many papers were left without decisive, six-column, 100-point post-election headlines. Talk about hell.

And weeks later, when the Supreme Court finally demanded a halt to obsessive-compulsive recounts, there was no newsroom pizza to celebrate a newly elected president. Worse, there was an intense hatred of Ralph Nader, as if third-party candidates had never screwed Republicans in a presidential race (Ross Perot, anyone?). The whole Democratic Party must have driven without seat belts in protest of everyone‘s favorite consumer advocate.

Sadly, I missed one of the best election nights in recent journalism history: the recall of Gray Davis and the election of uber-hero Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had spent a year as a magazine editor, and was suffering from news withdrawal to the point of taking a pay cut to return to print journalism. I had accepted a position with a daily paper, but the two-week notice to the magazine meant I had to watch Arnold's acceptance speech from the comfort of my own home.

Predictably, Gray was washed out by the star power of the action hero, and the election gave news outlets even more meaty fodder. The "Terminator" as governor? Too cool. Except there was one editorial problem: The best elected officials have short, tidy names that fit well in a one-column headline spec. "Davis," "Bush," and even the skinny letters in "Clinton" were a good fit. How would newspapers ever cope with "Schwarzenegger"? The governor could barely pronounce it. The paper's editor quickly approved usage of "Arnold" in headlines.

Since we were now on a cozy first-name basis with the Republican governor -- like the rest of California -- it would be interesting to see how GOPs fared in the next big election, Bush’s bid to keep his Pennsylvania Avenue address.

“Fucking Bush, man,” an angry, caffeine-laden news assistant grumbled as he paced near the TVs before the first returns had even come in on Nov. 2, 2004. “He’s fuckin’ going down!”

In the midst of his vitriolic snarling, he stopped by my candy bowl to grab a handful of half-price Halloween goodies. “That’s Republican candy, you know,” I quipped with a grin.

He stomped off, still growling. “Yeah, all the fucking rich Republican candy corporations...”

I wanted Bush to win for about every reason in the world: Supreme Court, Iraq, War on Terror, the list goes on. But at that point I willed the president to win for no other reason than making this obnoxious twerp eat crow along with his fun-size Charleston Chew.

Isn’t having a Republican in the newsroom a hoot? It’s also somewhat of a tourist attraction. One friend from the sports department stopped by later in the evening. “Did you really vote for Bush?” he asked solemnly. I confirmed his darkest fear. “You’re the only person I know who voted for Bush,” he continued, just staring down at me.

That’s nice to know. Did you get some pizza?

Finding any takers for a bet on the election that night was difficult, even for a Lotto-crazy newsroom. But one die-hard liberal (and die-hard gambler) went for the bet, and we wagered a grilled chicken sandwich from a favorite restaurant. Suddenly the focus went from free pizza to free chicken sandwich. But this was far from free -- my candidate would have to come through.

As Bush led in Ohio, the last state he needed to pull off the big win, I received a message. “I bet you’re tasting that chicken sandwich right about now,” the guy I’d bet against wrote.

“I’m nibbling on the bun,” I replied, “but I’m not counting my chicken sandwiches before they hatch.”

“Do they raise good chickens in Ohio?” he replied.

“I don’t know, but they sure raise tasty electoral votes sought the world over.”

I never got to do my victory lap that night; somebody probably would have tripped me en route, anyway. As the election remained too close to call and vice presidential nominee John Edwards hinted at a legal brouhaha, we dribbled out of the newsroom one by one. When I got up the next morning, Kerry was giving his concession speech and it was time to celebrate with Republican friends.

When I returned to work, I did my dignified version of the “nah nah nah” -- head held high, slight smile, striding to my desk while cheerfully greeting co-workers. Pissed-off co-workers. But I resisted the temptation to gloat -- I knew that if Kerry had won, there would have been an entire legion of newsies dancing on my grave.

I did, however, have to listen to the conspiracy theories intended to salve electoral wounds.

“Did you notice that in the states actually affected by terrorism, Bush lost?” one eagerly noted. “In Washington, D.C. -- which was attacked -- Kerry got 90 percent!” Everybody nodded in agreement; some expanded on the point.

In my little corner of this ideological world, I rolled my eyes. “D.C. goes Democrat,” I growled, more for myself than them, who wouldn’t listen anyway. “My grandmother could have called D.C.”

I chuckled as I heard one newsie prophesize that right-wing religious nuts were about to bring the end of the world. I can understand if they were blue. We Republicans had to live through two terms of Bill Clinton, and it was payback time. But this time around, they were blue -- and most of the country map was red. Call it a color-coded alert system.

Confessions of a Republican Journalist: Cub Reporter

Some reporters go directly from a prestigious, liberal-minded journalism school directly to a lowest-rung position writing obituaries or sorting through press releases at a large, bustling daily newspaper. The alternative to this approach is the far less prestigious yet extremely useful baptism by fire at a small-town newspaper. It’s the journalistic equivalent of walking to school three miles in the snow with no shoes: You suffer for your craft and get to scare newbies down the line with your tales of indentured servitude.

Consider a town of only 15,000 people. Home to an annual raisin festival, in the grand California tradition of towns across the state claiming their own unique crops for purposes of celebration (Gilroy = garlic festival, Castroville = artichoke festival, Oxnard = strawberry festival, etc.). This town had one Kmart. It also was home to a 3,000-circulation weekly newspaper where I covered city council, police and fire, school board, obituaries and other assorted events, wrote a weekly column, took my own photos and laid out my own pages. I never delivered the paper, though I could have used the cash.

It was my first full-time newspaper job. The pay was somewhere between college student and abject poverty. The old building (very early 1900s) had scary, dark corners -- I was so creeped out by the building’s recesses, I’d drive home to use the loo -- crusty books stuffed with yellowed back editions and a mouse that would visit my office and tickle my feet when I was writing stories. The editor and publisher had ruled the roost pushing 50 years when I worked there, and only wore ties on days he served as someone’s pallbearer.

And the exciting stories, the ripe journalistic opportunities?

"I want you to go do this story on National Breastfeeding Awareness Month today," the editor directed in his usual gruff voice one day, a signature spooky creak of the floorboards heralding his arrival in my office.

I winced. I cringed. I considered feigning illness. I chose begging and pleading in a measured voice. "Please don't make me do this."

"Well, I can't do it. I'd look like a pervert!" he barked back.

So I picked up my little white spiral notebook emblazoned with a blue "NEWS" on the front and spent the next hour at a local office where low-income moms picked up vouchers to buy orange juice and milk. But the woman behind the desk wasn't talking about cow's milk.

"When you want a snack, do you think you should have to go into a bathroom to get that snack?" she asked mid-lecture while wagging a finger at me, drumming home her point about a woman's right to breastfeed whenever, wherever, however she wanted without a single disparaging look from passers-by -- who, by the way, would be rude and intrusive if they dared wrinkle their noses at the sight.

But the big cheese in the milk program didn't know I was one of "those" people that she railed against, not a prude but someone who just would like to see a bit of decorum when it comes to breast-feeding. She just was pontificating to an objective (hah), fair-minded (heh) journalist working on a classic filler story of limited importance.

These are the stories of small-town papers. Some journalists love this news and stay at these tiny publications their whole lives, becoming fixtures in the community and dying at their desks of old age. Some dreamers simply find the experience a strenuous steppingstone, and move out and on as soon as possible. When I was hired, I didn’t quite understand why the editor asked me for a yearlong commitment. Soon I understood.

Picture covering the town’s beauty pageant and trying to keep a straight face in the “talent” competition as a teen danced across stage in lederhosen while playing a trombone. Or third-graders trying to re-create James Cameron’s re-creation of the sinking of the Titanic (minus the Model T sex scene, thankfully). Coma-inducing city council meetings that droned on into the wee hours of the night as they lazily debated stop signs and sewage.

But at least there was some politics, and not just because it was here where I first met now-Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (and first disliked him).

The first campaign I covered was the California gubernatorial race of 1998, when Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis ran against Attorney General Dan Lungren. Davis’ wife, Sharon (pictured left), was on a campaign swing through Central California. She stopped at the senior center in my small town for a stump speech, and I was assigned to cover it.

What I found at the senior center was a handful of residents waiting for Davis' entourage, waving signs for Lungren. After Davis went into the center to interrupt the seniors‘ lunch, the pickets -- most of them little old ladies -- tried to go in to hear the speech as well, and were stopped by the town's mayor and the facilities director from entering. Why? After all, it was a public building, and the Republican seniors were just as old as the others inside. "You were going to ask a loaded question," was the mayor's reasoning, as he wagged a finger at the pro-Lungren bunch.

If Sharon Davis couldn't handle a "loaded question," whatever that meant, why was she on the campaign trail for her hubby? I later sat down with her for my first big campaign interview, where she gave generic answers to my weak newbie questions, her hair in a pert little flip and her face frozen in a gummy smile.

When I got back to the newsroom, my boss nudged me toward the real story of the day: not Davis' rehearsed campaign-wife answers, not the amazing fact that any candidate had remembered the town existed, but that the mayor's blocking of the door had denied the GOP seniors their freedom of speech, right to access, pursuit of happiness in getting to hassle a Democrat, etc. This was big stuff for a little podunk town!

“Davis‘ wife visits here: Local Republicans get cold shoulder.” Page one, lead story. Yet coming from a 3,000-circ. weekly in a town better known for shriveled grapes than political bombshells, the story didn't even dent the Davis campaign armor.

I’m not sure the small town was ready for the big-city girl. I know I sure wasn’t ready for it. I couldn’t get used to everyone knowing everybody’s business -- hey, that was my career, not pastime. Large cities are often characterized as impersonal and unfriendly, but I don’t see that -- a bit of anonymity is a comfort (says the blogress airing her dirty laundry) and people still help people. I missed the variety, the bustle, roads with more than two lanes.

I had a column at the weekly paper, as I would in some shape or form wherever I went in my career. And it was from this that I learned the greatest lesson in journalism, in the form of a note from an angry reader:

“She offends someone nearly every week with her column,” the man railed in scrawly handwriting, continuing with a full paragraph of complaints about me.

And he wrote this on the back of his subscription renewal.

So therein lies the great commandment of pundit, of editor, of reporter: They may love you, they may hate you -- but as long as they read you, who cares?

Confessions of a Republican Journalist: College, Part II

When I was an awkward 13-year-old with frizzy hair, teeth in need of braces and pimples the size of Alabama, a teacher told me not to fear -- age 18, she said, would be my “it” year. So in the first semester of college, having grown past those aesthetic disasters and presented with a "class optional" educational situation unlike high school, I figured it was catch-up time. I’d had one steady boyfriend for my junior year in high school, dated odds and ends my senior year, and was ready to go when I stepped onto a college campus with thousands of men. Fittingly, the first guy I dated there was in campus Republicans and a prominent figure in school politics. His name was "Paul." (Names changed to exercise at least one ounce of discretion.)

Paul had a tiny, old Alfa Romeo convertible that was fun to ride in but left my hair looking like Cousin It. He talked about little else but school politics. Things between us cooled after sharing one rain-soaked kiss -- oh, and after a friend and I hosed his car interior with Silly String -- and my attentions turned to one of the Greek senators on the student council, "Alfie."

Alfie was president of the largest fraternity on campus that anchored Greek row with a big Victorian-style house. One night he invited me to a party at the house; I took my friend Jackie along for my very first (and not last, unfortunately) fraternity party. The three of us sat on a roof perch and watched Alfie's brothers pass out on the lawn; when one did, the others would try to revive him with the garden hose. What fun!

Alfie was laid-back and didn’t really care for the drama of school politics. After the three of us ran out for some drinks and munchies, I dropped him back off at the house at a time when nearly everyone was passed out on the lawn. (Frame of reference: Cal State campus. No one learning anything.) As soon as Jackie alighted from the back seat, Alfie leaned over in the passenger seat and kissed me on the cheek. “Call me next time it rains,” he said, alluding to the Paul story that had slipped out in earlier conversation.

My mind began to turn. Should I have been spending hours in meetings, arguing with lefties who just liked to argue about how many days there were in a week? Or should I be having some fun? This was college. How long was I going to be 18? (Though in California, the options are endless.)

Members of the campus Republicans got suspicious when I served as Alfie’s proxy at a student council meeting. I don’t even know if he was truly busy or just wanted to have fun stirring the pot by sending me in his stead. Either way, it was stirred. The conservatives accused me of sharing party secrets -- to an independent Greek senator who couldn’t care less, no less -- over rounds of miniature golf. Alfie didn’t learn any deep, dark party secrets, but did learn I could easily whack a ball off the miniature golf range and into nearby traffic.

When high school friends Susan, Jackie and I joined the campus Republican group, we were called the “young guns” for our deep commitment to GOP values and brazen ability to joyfully annoy the campus lefties at the drop of a hat. In fact, I was given the 1993 “Hardcore Award,” a paper medal adorned with foil stars and rimmed in red glitter that is taped in a scrapbook today. But when I decided to date a neutral -- not even an “enemy” -- I became persona non grata with the campus GOP crowd. I think that stubbornness they found so appealing when I’d first walked into the club also dictated that I wouldn’t let them push me around when they tried to tell me who I could and couldn’t date. Sure, I only went out with Alfie for a couple more months, but I’m glad I stood my ground. Imagine how they would have freaked when I dated the Marxist (as mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2005 -- check out that seamless self-promotion!).

A couple of years later, I considered joining the military to work in intelligence, and took the ASVAB test. I got a 96 percent, which prompted test-takers around me to ask, “Dude, are you gonna, like, work on nuclear subs?” Then it set in how long a three-year commitment was, especially at that age. Didn't do it. Soon I was at school full-time and working full-time, with an apartment of my own off campus (a.k.a. heaven).

But my professors were insane: one tried to argue that "natural-born citizen" as defined as a presidential qualification meant that the person had to be born head-first instead of the breech position. In the women's studies requirement class, the professor assigned a final paper on which theory of feminism we agreed with most. I said "none" -- and wrote a paper describing "conservative feminism," the belief that a woman could achieve anything and was strong enough to do so without insulting crutches from the government such as affirmative action. I got a "C." Liberal profs could easily tank grades.

I needed an outlet. And I quickly found my calling.

The campus paper was advertising for columnists -- $10 per piece. And it was a grand opportunity for me to spout off my mouth.

As my pieces rolled off the presses, denouncing everything from political correctness to euthanasia and attempts to hike the minimum wage, I began to really see what I was up against, as the microcosm of the lefties in the student council from my first semester became apparent across campus.

In 1996, a pickup crammed with illegal immigrants was flying through Riverside County, being pursued for 80 miles at speeds of up to 90 mph as the truck’s occupants threw cans and pieces of camper shell at law enforcement vehicles. Twice the pickup tried to ram civilian vehicles that got in its way, and all was captured for TV by news helicopters. The pickup finally stopped, the immigrants spilled out into the nearby brush, and officers used their batons to detain two fighting suspects. One of the people who had been beaten filed a $10 million lawsuit claiming violation of international torture laws, though the hospital said she’d suffered only a bruised shoulder.

I made a few main points in my column: a) that people need to learn the whole story before passing judgment on the case, and not just go by what was captured by TV helicopters, b) that the illegal immigrant shouldn’t be able to profit off the American system after just breaking about a dozen laws, and c) that everyone was missing -- or conveniently ignoring -- the violence of the chase and how many lives were endangered.

“The government of Mexico is outraged at how we treated their citizens,” I wrote. “Well, if they treated their citizens a little better, maybe they wouldn’t be swimming across the Rio Grande.”

Oh, the ensuing mail! A torrent of progressive thought. And people didn’t just write letters, they wrote essays calling me “Mexophobic” (good thing half my friends didn’t know that!), “ignorant,” “racist,” “prejudiced,” “rude,” the list goes on. “We would like to thank Ms. Johnson for increasing the racial tension and prejudice on a racially diverse campus,” one letter said. This on a campus where there were black-only and Latino-only fraternities and sororities; did they honestly think my column caused such divisiveness?

It was a reflex of a Cal State system that achingly tried to be so politically correct that it encouraged rather militant leftist groups -- one Latino group advocated the forceful “taking back” of California for Mexico -- and left dissenting opinions out in the cold. This I knew well -- I was, after all, the only conservative columnist on campus for a time.

“You know, Bridget, I really agree with you, but I couldn’t tell my friends that because they’d kill me,” a Hispanic girl said to me after the immigrant-beating column.

How sad. This was supposedly an enlightened public university campus supposedly committed to open thought and freedom of expression.

Years later, I went back to look at that column. The reaction had left me thinking it was so radical, so out there, but an objective reading long after the fact made me seriously wonder what all the fuss was about. It was no worse than any modern column addressing the issue of immigration, but I’d been led to believe in college that it was on par with the Marquis de Sade’s scribblings.

I found another column I wrote noting that a professor had handed out a political-correctness primer that warned students not to exhibit any “classism” toward each other. I was shocked that they actually thought that rich students who might pick on poor students would even attend CSU in the first place. Cal State was Maybelline as compared to the Estee Lauder of the University of California system, or the Chanel of Stanford or USC.

From day one of the columnist job, I saved all mail received -- hate mail especially. I developed the philosophy that it didn’t matter if they loved or hated me as long as they read me. (Quite akin to a Howard Stern philosophy, actually.) One fax was from a congressional aide who said he’d been “impressed” by my editorials; today he's a state assemblyman.

Suffice to say the lessons I learned in college probably weren’t the ones the deans and professors at my Cal State had hoped to impart. I learned to voice my opinion if I feel it’s the right thing, regardless of whether I face verbal ambush for the choice. I learned to save all hate mail, because you never know if you’ll need it again someday for a blog. And I learned that eating Taco Bell at 3 a.m. really can induce dragon heartburn.

But most of all, I learned that your destiny can be something you never considered. Journalism had grabbed me by the throat through a measly $10-a-week column, and it was about to drag me into the great unknown.