Former congresswoman and the first female VP candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, has passed away:

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for U.S. vice president by a major political party, died today at age 75 after a long battle with blood cancer.

Ferraro ran with Democratic nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 election; they lost to President Ronald Reagan and running mate George H.W. Bush.

I saw Ferraro on Fox News not long ago (appearing with Sarah Palin) and was unaware of the extent of her condition.

Condolences to the Ferraro family.

Update: Predictably, the WBC freaks have already announced plans to picket Ferraro’s public memorial.

Update II: Didn’t take some on the left long to use Ferraro’s death to bash Palin.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

From the time I saw Airplane in a movie theater at the age of about 15, I was hooked on Leslie Nielsen’s style. His comedic timing and delivery was impeccable. He’d had a lengthy career before that which covered many genres and characters, but Airplane directors and writers Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers had successfully tapped into what Leslie Nielsen was born to do: Make people laugh.

Leslie Nielsen passed away on Sunday:

Leslie Nielsen, who went from drama to inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in “Airplane!” and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in “The Naked Gun” comedies, has died. He was 84.

His agent John S. Kelly says Nielsen died Sunday at a hospital near his home in Ft. Lauderdale where he was being treated for pneumonia.

Nielsen has been responsible for making me laugh more than almost anybody, with the possible exceptions of Johnny Carson and Michael Dukakis, and he’ll be greatly missed.

A commenter at Free Republic wrote, “I hope they allow whoopie cushions in heaven.” I do too, but if not, maybe Leslie can get the rules changed so the rest of us can laugh at him when we get up there like we did down here.

To that end, I just want to say good luck, Leslie, we’re all counting on you.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This past week, Art Linkletter and Gary Coleman died, and this morning came news that actor Dennis Hopper has passed after a long battle with cancer:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood actor Dennis Hopper, best known for directing and starring in the 1969 cult classic “Easy Rider,” died Saturday at his home in Venice, California, from complications of prostate cancer, a friend told Reuters. Hopper was 74.

The hard-living screen icon died at 8:15 a.m. PDT , surrounded by family and friends, said the friend, Alex Hitz.

I always enjoyed Hopper’s on-screen presence — something about him was easy to watch no matter what the role.

Hopper was also a Hollywood rarity: A Republican since Reagan (Hopper once said that in his earlier years he was “as left as you can get without being a communist”) — but that Republican streak ended after Hopper voted for Barack Obama, reportedly because he didn’t like McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. But that was Dennis Hopper — unpredictable, but always interesting and entertaining.

So what was your favorite Dennis Hopper role (degree of difficulty: No “Easy Rider”)? Oh I’m just kidding — we can’t possibly remove that from the mix. Put me down for his role as “Shooter” in the film Hoosiers, for which Hopper received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

One of the great voices of authentic heartland America fell silent today. Paul Harvey was doing nationwide conservative talk radio for decades before anyone thought of it as conservative talk radio. Everybody recognizes his distinctive, quirky voice with the…….odd pauses and offbeat emphases, but his success was about far more than his distinctive diction.

Paul Harvey put news out there that no other outlet touched. His Paul Harvey News and Comment scoured the wires for random stuff–and ideologically inconvenient stuff– you just didn’t hear on the Big Three mainstream TV news, and crammed it all in to crisp five minute chunks, complete with terse commentary and the occasional wry thwack of sarcasm–and he still had time for the inevitable personalized pitches for Buicks and the Bose Acoustic Wave Radio. Here’s what he had to say about his advertisers:

“I can’t look down on the commercial sponsors of these broadcasts,” he told CBS in 1988. “Too often they have very, very important messages to put across. Without advertising in this country, my goodness, we’d still be in this country what Russia mostly still is: a nation of bearded cyclists with b.o.”

Zing. He was always like that. Paul Harvey invented blogging; he just did his blogging on the radio.

His other program was the famous two-minute cliffhanger, “The Rest of the Story”. What a great and simple concept. The title itself gives away the game: the news you hear is only a scratch on the surface of reality, which has a roomy, spacious Buick Roadmaster trunk full of connections and ironies the network talking heads only hint at. The media isn’t giving you enough of the story, Paul told us, which is something we’d all suspected all along: more is going on out there than they let on.

His radio show wasn’t particularly ideological–you could tell he leaned right but it was mainly through the choice of stories and headlines he picked out. He also had a syndicated column back in the day that my state paper carried, and he was a rock-ribbed Middle American (Tulsa native, in fact) social and fiscal conservative with a heart of gold, a deep love of country, and no illusions about the stakes of foreign policy. He was a Reaganesque thinker, as well as a Reaganesque communicator.

One more thing: back when Fred Thompson was just flirting with running for President, one of the things that excited me the most about his candidacy was his ABC radio addresses he gave while sitting in for Paul Harvey. I thought that was a politically brilliant move that really showcased Fred’s strengths–authentic, no-BS Heartland conservatism. I wasn’t the only one–I kind of trace the groundswell of interest in Thompson back to his time broadcasting from Paul Harvey’s chair, and likewise the deflation of the Thompson bubble to the time he left it.

Anyway, Paul Harvey: innovator, inspiration, and a great American. R.I.P.
_______________________

MORE: Lileks has Paul Harvey audio from 1968. It’s a bit of a letdown…but you can’t help but listen to the end.

_______________________

(Post written by guest-blogger emeritus See-Dubya. Opinions are my own, and I wrote the post on my own time and equipment.)

He tangled with the Obamessiah last month, too, and got thrown under the bus.

__________________

{Post by See-Dubya.}

Sorry to depart from politics, and to inflict upon you my acutely uncool taste in music (Mark Steyn can switch between the two subjects with ease, but I can’t lay claim to his expertise). However, Eddy was a class act and deserves to be remembered for that. When so many celebrities and musicians are revelling in trash, it’s worth remembering someone who enjoyed a great deal of success yet lived his life pretty much above reproach. I’ve no idea what his politics were, and he never posed nude for a magazine cover (nor let his fifteen-year-old daughter do so like Billy B. Badd did.) He just sang, and sang well, in a great warm baritone that you’ll probably like even if you don’t like country.

In fact, that was part of his appeal, and a source of some criticism against him: along with Jim Reeves’, his style became known as “countrypolitan”. Eddy dropped a lot of the distinctive country instrumentation and the bedazzler’d shirts, and donned a tuxedo and sang in front of a sound-stage orchestra with lots of strings. The Jordannaires (or vocalists who sounded like them) backed him up in the kind of production music writers like to call “lush”. But all that lush backing still couldn’t hide the country in his voice. (Once in a while, he still indulged it.)

He was branded a sellout to his country roots by a lot of folks in Nashville, but his sound has aged better than many of the hillbilly acts of the day. I hesitate to dub Eddy a “crooner”, because that term conjures up (to me) a degree of smarm and guile and syrup I can’t detect in that voice. He’s not slick, or even smooth, which means he can handle some pretty sappy lyrics and still have it work. Dean Martin belting out “Make the World Go Away” would just sound like he was making excuses for being drunk; Eddy sounds like he’s been hurt and he means every word.

So if you’ll permit me one dedication: this is going out to Hillary in Chappaqua.

________________________

{Post by See-Dubya, who assumes all liability for accusations of fogeyness resulting from this post. Any uncoolness is solely mine and not Michelle’s.}

A quiet GOP senator from Wyoming who avoided the spotlight has passed away.

Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74.

The senator’s family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

According to a statement from his office, Thomas’ cancer had been resistant to a second round of chemotherapy and he was suffering from an infection in addition to the leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed.

At his Senate website, Sen. Thomas’s May 17 statement on the shamnesty bill is featured:

U.S. Senator Craig Thomas said the immigration compromise recently struck in the Senate allows blanket amnesty and will cost our nation vast amounts of money in entitlement spending.

“Senate deal-makers have failed to make the necessary changes to enact a strong national immigration policy. What we have before us will grant amnesty at most every turn. This policy affords a path to citizenship for nearly every type of illegal immigration possible.”

“This poorly crafted compromise will end up costing taxpayers trillions of dollars in entitlement spending. Our already straining Social Security and Medicare system will take on far more than it can handle — costing taxpayers for many years to come.”

“The Heritage Foundation recently reported that if current adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. were granted amnesty, the net retirement costs to government, — their benefits minus taxes — will be well over $2.5 trillion.”

“I’m against creating a special law that rewards illegal behavior by providing a path to citizenship. And I’m against this so-called compromise.”

“I was clear at the outset of our immigration debate last year that I would oppose a bill that is either weak or allows amnesty. While there are certain limited exceptions which merit special attention, none of them make a case for blanket amnesty,” Thomas said.

Senator Thomas’ Priorities:

• Opposes amnesty in any form;
• Supports strengthening border security and protection;
• Supports mandatory electronic employment verification; and,
• Supports tough employer accountability provisions which increase penalties for those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Uncommon sense. Decency. Aversion to the limelight. Sen. Thomas will be missed.

Thomas was born in Cody, Wyo., and raised on a ranch. He earned a degree in agriculture from the University of Wyoming and served four years in the Marines. He is survived by his wife and four children.

***

A Blog P.I. contributor looks at the statute governing vacant seats in Wyoming and recounts meeting Thomas and chatting about a 5k run he was going to enter: “That guy loved to run.”

Robert Bluey: “He was always a gentleman.”

“I was honored to have him serve this country,” Joseph Anzack Sr. told the [Torrance] Breeze. “I know he went over there and made a difference… It was an honor to be his father.”

Keep his family and the families of the other still-missing soldiers in your thoughts and prayers.

Here is Pfc. Anzack’s MySpace page.

Update: First obituaries coming in…McClatchy….

Admire him or revile him, the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s role in American history will reverberate long past his death Tuesday at the age of 73.

***

His legacy and shadow are sure to come up in the GOP debate tonight. Here’s a flashback on McCain and Falwell. Here’s Falwell on Giuliani. And Falwell and Romney.

An RNS survey looks at the changing face of evangelical leaders.

The Huffington Post seems to have closed their comments section on the story. Wisely.

Allah tracking the condolences and condemnation here.

The glee is unbridled elsewhere.

***

Marc Ambinder at National Journal:

In recent years, the media overstated Falwell’s power considerably, but his influence is undeniable, and has, for years, exceeded his power. Still, the movement he founded lost some of its original coherence. The Moral Majority doesn’t exist — it has matured into a dozen different organizations. The Christian Coalition is a shell of its former self. Some Republicans question their arrangement with the leading lights of the Christian Right; conservative Christians are asserting their independence. But such are the signs of a mature political movement. That tonight’s debate will focus, fairly or unfairly, on one candidate’s position on abortion — that’s a testament to Falwell’s legacy.

Hotline also has incoming reax from GOP candidates.

Mstislav Rostropovich, the ebullient master cellist who courageously fought for the rights of Soviet-era dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach suites below the crumbling Berlin Wall, has died. He was 80.

Rostropovich died Friday in a Moscow cancer hospital, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. Rostropovich’s spokeswoman, Natalia Dollezhal, confirmed to The Associated Press that he had died but she did not provide other details.

Rostropovich, who resided in Paris after self-imposed exile, suffered from intestinal cancer.

His death follows that of another towering Russian — former President Boris N. Yeltsin, who led the country from Communism to democracy.

“The passing of Mstislav Rostropovich is a bitter blow to our culture,” said author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was sheltered by Rostropovich during his bitter fight against Soviet authorities in the 1970s.

Here is Rostropovich in Paris 1962 performing Bach´s Suite for Solo Cello in C Major: Bourreé…

A nice tribute here.

One of my favorite cartoonists, the brilliant Johnny Hart, died yesterday–Holy Saturday. He was funny, fierce, and faithful:

Cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning “B.C.” comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, died Saturday while working at his home in Endicott. He was 76.

“He had a stroke,” Hart’s wife, Bobby, said Sunday. “He died at his storyboard.”

“B.C.,” populated by prehistoric cavemen and dinosaurs, was launched in 1958 and eventually appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers with an audience of 100 million, according to Creators Syndicate Inc., which distributes it.

“He was generally regarded as one of the best cartoonists we’ve ever had,” Hart’s friend Mell Lazarus, creator of the “Momma” and “Miss Peach” comic strips, said from his California home. “He was totally original. ‘B.C’ broke ground and led the way for a number of imitators, none of which ever came close.”

After he graduated from Union-Endicott High School, Hart met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist who became a prime influence and co-creator with Hart of the “Wizard of Id” comic strip.

Hart enlisted in the Air Force and began producing cartoons for Pacific Stars and Stripes. He sold his first freelance cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post after his discharge from the military in 1954.

Later in his career, some of Hart’s cartoons had religious themes, a reflection of his own Christian faith. That sometimes led to controversy…

Flashback, my syndicated column, April 18, 2001: P.C. vs. B.C.

HAVE you read the comics lately? They’re not your father’s funny pages, anymore. The superheroes and silly creatures of old have taken a back seat to more politically correct characters – such as single working women (“Cathy” and “Maxine”), gay teens (“For Better or For Worse”), and racially charged smart alecks (“Boondocks”).

There’s nothing wrong with the modernization and diversification of a newspaper’s comics section. But as is typically the case with the liberal media’s narrow concept of “diversity,” some kinds of differences don’t count. Like spiritual diversity.

“B.C.” by Johnny Hart, the most widely read cartoonist in the world, is under fire for being too overtly Christian. Hart’s unique blend of gentle caveman humor and serious messages of faith have won him millions of lifelong readers worldwide. But after carrying Hart’s strip for 33 years, the Los Angeles Times dropped B.C. last week. The paper, like several in Denver, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., refused to run many religious-themed B.C. installments. (The strip is sold by Creators Syndicate, which also syndicates this column.)

The Times’ cancellation came on the heels of a hysterical protest by left-wing Jewish groups who called on newspapers nationwide to censor Hart’s Easter weekend strip. In the cartoon, Hart drew seven panels containing Biblical passages of Jesus’ last words. In each panel, a seven-branched candelabra light goes out until the shape of a cross remains. The last panel evokes the resurrection of Christ, with a trail of blood running from the cross into an empty tomb. One fringe group, the Jewish Defense League, complained that the strip was “an affront to the Jewish people. It is telling Christians to destroy our religion in the name of Jesus.” Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League carped that Hart’s work was “insensitive and offensive.” They demanded the comic strip be censored…

…The N.Y.-based Hart, a devout evangelical Christian, says he in no way intended to denigrate the Jewish faith. At least one courageous and common-sensical Jew agrees, and he castigated Hart’s censorious critics. Binyamin Jolkovsky, editor of JewishWorldReview.com, said last week that “A comic strip in honor of a holy season that is not my own doesn’t send a chill down my spine, nor make my blood boil, even if it includes Jewish symbols.” He continued: “As a Sabbath-observant Jew, rabbinical school alumnus and publisher of the most-accessed Jewish Web site, I see absolutely nothing wrong with Hart’s message.”

The real danger, Jolkovsky warns, is the increasing attack on public displays of all faiths. For Christians and Jews alike, the slow and steady snuffing out of religious expression in the mainstream marketplace of ideas is no laughing matter.

Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

Here is Hart’s B.C. page at Creators.com. From his bio:

President John F. Kennedy said, “There are three things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.” Cartoonist Johnny Hart does what he can with the third. And what he does is tremendous. For Johnny Hart’s B.C. brings laughter to more than 100 million readers worldwide.

“As far back as I can remember, I drew funny pictures which got me in or out of trouble depending on the circumstances,” recalls the successful comic strip creator.

Here’s a profile of Hart in Christianity Today that ran ten years ago.

Here’s Kathleen Parker defending Johnny Hart from the CAIR police in 2003.

One of B.C. cartoons the LA Times first refused to run was his Palm Sunday 1996 strip featuring the famous character Wiley sitting against a tree, tablet in hand, writing a poem entitled “The Suffering Prince.” Here’s the poem:

Picture yourself tied to a tree,
condemned of the sins of eternity.
Then picture a spear, parting the air,
seeking your heart to cut your despair.
Suddenly—a knight, in armor of white,
stands in the gap betwixt you and its flight,
And shedding his ‘armor of God’ for you—
bears the lance that runs him through.
His heart has been pierced that yours may beat,
and the blood of his corpse washes your feet.
Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found.

***

An e-mail tonight from one of B.C.’s millions of fans:

Michelle,

Thanks for your obituary notice of the passing of Johnny Hart. I
heard him speak and do a sketch at a World Journalism Institute
session. At a banquet later that evening he gave an account of his
conversion and Christian perspective on his vocation which was
illuminating and very moving. At the informal WJI session is asked
what we are supposed to call the day between Good Friday and Easter.
It’s Holy Saturday, of course, but in view of Christ’s victory over
the underworld Johnny Hart suggested it might be called “kick butt
Saturday.” How appropriate that the Lord chose Holy Saturday to
usher him into His presence.

David Jones
Professor of Theology and Ethics
Covenant Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Mo.

Ed Morrissey pays tribute:

Comic strips used to be one of my passions. I learned to read from Peanuts strips and books, and ever since, my subscriptions to the newspapers in the various places I have lived had as much to do with the comics section as the op-ed pages and news articles. In a way, the comic strips created the passion for news that has led me to becoming a full-time blogger.

One of those comic strip artists I particularly enjoyed was Johnny Hart, who wrote “B.C.” and co-wrote “The Wizard of Id”.

…Some claimed him as a triumphalist, but Hart tried to show what he felt was the importance of Christianity to Western civilization, and he never apologized for incorporating his faith into his work.

It seems especially fitting that Hart went to his Lord on Easter, and passed away at the storyboard. May the Lord accept Hart with open arms. Godspeed, Johnny, and thank you.

Amen.

A Florida reader sent along a news item about the memorial service for U.S. Army PFC Branden Cummings:

About 1,000 people crammed into the Brevard Memorial Funeral Home and spilled into the parking lot for the funeral of U.S. Army PFC Branden Cummings of Titusville.

Cummings, who died, Feb. 14 in Iraq, was remembered by family members as “the outgoing jokester with a big heart who could make everbody laugh.

“What a life, what a life that has been lived by this man,” The Rev. Joe Robinson said in his eulogy. “What a legacy he has left behind.”

The Orlando Sentinel reports Cummings was “killed on Valentine’s Day by an improvised explosive device during combat in Baqouba, about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. He was 20.”

He looked up to his father, Charles Cummings, a Titusville corrections officer who had raised his son by himself since the boy was a preschooler. He called his dad “my hero” in a letter on his MySpace page.

“He has made so many sacrifices to make sure I was happy and now maybe I can return the favor to him. He’s my dad, he’s my hero, and I love him with all my heart,” Cummings wrote.

In return, his father said he offered unwavering support when Cummings enlisted in 2005, even though he knew his son’s choice might one day lead him to the front lines in Iraq.

“He had a strong sense that he needed to be there. He felt that what we were doing [in Iraq] was just and right,” Charles Cummings said Saturday. “I was proud of him every single day for that.”

Branden Cummings was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood.

The Patriot Guard Riders attended the funeral. Here is a memorial website called Our Guys Over There honoring Cummings and his platoon, including SSG Daniel Morris, killed Nov. 25 in Diyala province after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

You can e-mail the platoon members and leave messages for the Cummings and Morris families here. Show your support.

***

Don’t forget: Appeal for Courage.

The immortal words of 2LT Mark Daily live on. The Los Angeles Times has picked up the story: “Mark Daily wrote on MySpace that he joined the Army to help the suffering people of Iraq. In death, his words have become a call to service.”

A small sample:

In a 2005 videotape of his officers’ commissioning ceremony, Daily told the crowd that the U.S. Army is one of the few militaries in the world that teach not only tactics but also ethics. “I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world,” he said.

He was not blind to military transgressions and fumed to his father that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib was a failure of leadership. But that was exactly why he needed to get over there, he said. He was going to make sure that his men upheld Army values of integrity and honor.

So that is why I joined. In the time it took you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny.

Don’t forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans have a responsibility to the oppressed. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction.

So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include “Good Luck.”

Daily touched down in Iraq on Nov. 19 and was sent to the northern city of Mosul. In calls and e-mails home, he began asking for presents for his new Iraqi friends: cigars for the soldiers, candy and soccer balls for the children. He vividly described his adventures with them: a Thanksgiving Day game of musical chairs, a rooftop cigar session; his first Kurdish meal, his first local haircut.

In one video he sent, Iraqi soldiers surround him with grins, crowning him with a turban as a gesture of friendship.

In typical fashion, he sought out new points of view. In one discussion, he wrote that he asked a Kurdish man whether the insurgents could be viewed as freedom fighters. The man cut him off. “The difference between insurgents and American soldiers,” Daily said the man told him, “is that they get paid to take life — to murder — and you get paid to save lives.”

“That Kurdish man’s assessment of our presence means more to me than all of the naysayers and makeshift humanists that monopolize our interpretation of this war,” Daily wrote in a Dec. 31 e-mail.

Print, save, pass it on.

***

Meanwhile, Hillary sets her 90-day cut-and-run deadline.

WaPo spanks John Murtha and Glenn Reynolds notes: “Murtha is the face of today’s Democratic Party on the war. This is bad for the country, and likely to prove unwise politically.”

JD Johannes says: “Support the troops. Let them win.”

Mohammed Fadhil, PJM’s editor in Iraq, reports that it’s too early to celebrate, but the “surge” is showing signs of success and hope.

Investor’s Business Daily takes on Murtha’s “unparalleled perfidy” and publishes these latest poll results:

Power Line has combat veteran/former POW Rep. Sam Johnson’s floor speech. John Hinderaker writes: “If you can watch this with dry eyes, you’re a tougher man than me.”\

New – Sunday talk show video: Brit Hume takes on Murtha.

A Hot Air commenter quips: “Hume was speaking truth to coward.”

New: Allah weighs in on Hillary’s Ultimatumania! video.

***

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2LT Mark Daily’s message reaches the Senate floor
The immortal words of 2LT Mark Daily