Clint Walker

I'm a son of the west, born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I love the mountains, the wide open spaces, and especially the canyon lands in Utah and Arizona. My favorite place in the whole world is Monument Valley.

I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. My favorite TV shows were the oaters, the horse operas. All my brother, Steve, and I ever wanted for Christmas was cowboy hats and six guns. It was our youngest brother, Randall, however, who got to join the Westernaires horse riding club and become the real cowboy. He was in the cavalry in the James Arness How the West Was Won series in 1978.

As far back as I can remember, every Saturday morning was Roy Rogers. It was a special moment in 1997 when we passed through Victorville, California and stopped at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Just as we were about to leave Roy came through the lobby riding on a golf cart and we got to shake his hand. My son, Jonathan, was just two years old then and he stood in awe looking up at this real live cowboy. Do you know who that is? I asked him. John Wayne, he replied. I had a full sized John Wayne poster on the wall in our basement so he was already aware of him.

My dad loved westerns and I loved westerns. In fact, westerns is about the only thing I remember watching in my childhood. In our house every Friday night after dinner we watched Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin and Matt Dillon were almost household names. My favorite, though, came on Monday nights. Warner Brothers had a rotating series called The Cheyenne Show. Three programs, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Bronco alternated every Monday night. Bronco and Sugarfoot were okay, but my cowboy hero was the big tall guy who played Cheyenne, Clint Walker.

Clint Walker was born in Illinois just before the Great Depression. He had a twin sister, Neoma. They grew up in a conservative midwestern family, and he grew strong and big working along the Mississippi River. He would eventually reach 6'6" tall with a 36 inch waist and a 52 inch chest. With jet black hair and blue eyes, his face was finely chiseled and his looks were perfect. Not only was he the biggest guy around, he was the hands down handsomest.

He joined the Merchant Marines at age 18 at the end of World War 2, then worked as a longshoreman in Los Angeles, finally moving his family to Las Vegas, where he had a security job in the Sands Hotel. He had a great baritone voice, and somewhere along the line a movie actor, Van Johnson, suggested he should be in the movies. He went back to L.A. where an interview was arranged with Cecil B. DeMille, and the rest, as they say, is history.

He had a couple of small roles in movies, including being the Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments. He actually had speaking lines in the movie but they were cut out because he stole the scenes from a very proud, and apparently very jealous of being outshone, Yul Brynner. Then he was invited to test for a western series at Warner Brothers. They immediately liked him, bought his contract from DeMille, and in September 1955 he had the lead role in the first hour long TV western. Cheyenne was an immediate hit. It put Warner Brothers on the TV map. For eight seasons it was a top 20 rated show, three times in the top ten. For awhile Clint Walker was the biggest thing in Hollywood, not just in size, but in popularity as well.

His acting ability is often described as being wooden and very stiff. If you watch the first two or three seasons of Cheyenne that's probably a good description. But I don't think Walker is given enough credit by the critics. He essentially walked off the street and became an almost overnight star. He had no acting experience, no resume to go on to indicate he had any acting ability. He was learning as he went. If you compare his acting in his later Cheyenne episodes you see a real transformation into a quality performer. He started making movies in the late 1950s as well, and in those he was very good. Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly and Gold of the Seven Saints were all B rated films, but Walker's acting in each of them is top notch.

In the mid 60s he reached his zenith as an actor. He had tired of the same monotonous story lines in Cheyenne, and with contractual disputes he left it behind, but from 1965 to 1969 he was in some very highly rated movies including None but the Brave with Frank Sinatra, Night of the Grizzly, and The Dirty Dozen. Night of the Grizzly was his best starring role, and probably the best movie he ever made. (He actually wrote the script.) He seemed to be in demand then making several television appearances, including two on The Lucy Show where he proved himself to be very good at comedy. In 68 and 69 he was busy making several films including The Great Bank Robbery, Sam Whiskey, and More Dead Than Alive.

After a meteoric rise to fame and a decade at the top, his career started to decline at the end of the 60s. The Dirty Dozen was probably the biggest movie he was ever in, and he didn't have a major role. By the 70s he was back in television with a series, Kodiak, that lasted only one season, and several made for TV movies, mostly westerns, but he did branch out. In Cry Wolf he plays a very convincing psychotic bad guy opposite Peter Graves. In 1972 he went to Spain to make Pancho Villa with Telly Savallas, in which he has a very funny scene with Ann Francis. Francis was also in More Dead Than Alive. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together because they seem to have played well off each other.

It was also in 1972 that he had a near life-ending accident while skiing. He fell and one of his ski poles actually pierced his heart. It was only because of a doctor who recognized him and wouldn't give up working on him that his life was spared.

It's always been a puzzle to me why he wasn't more in demand in the 70s and on into the 80s. He hadn't lost his looks any, and from what I've seen, his ability as an actor grew from those wooden early days to some quality emotional performances. In Yellowstone Kelly he actually shed tears when his young protege is killed by Indians. He did again when his wife is killed in Deadly Harvest (which may have been the worst movie he ever made but not because of his acting).

It may be because of his conservative values and that he was very picky about the roles he accepted. He refused to do anything with gratuitous sex, excessive swearing, or bloody graphics. He rarely if ever said a foul word in his films. That kind of standard doesn't get you very far in Hollywood anymore, if it ever did. In the 80s he was making cat and dog food commercials on The Family Channel. Nowadays he runs his own website, Clint Walker: the Big Guy Himself, with his wife, Susan, selling his movies, and he makes appearances at western TV autograph shows.

My brother, Randall, met him in Branson when he was working there in a show in 2005. He had a friend who was named Clint after Clint Walker, and the two of them had a chance to talk to him for awhile when there were no crowds. Walker advised them to do good, clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment rather than the sexually provocative stuff. In fact, that is evident in the movies and TV shows he made.

In Cheyenne there are many shows where reference is made to the Bible and Christian values. In one episode he recovers a gold cross stolen long ago from a Catholic Church and insists it must be returned to respect the church. Talking with an orphaned boy in another episode he tells the boy he has read the entire Bible. And in an episode with James Coburn, he is arrested on trumped up charges, but when they take his gun and wallet, they allow him to keep a small Bible he has in his shirt pocket, after laughing at him for having a Bible. When bail is set he pulls the money out of the Bible where he had it hidden and tells Coburn, "There's a lot of interesting things in the Bible. You ought to read it sometime." Night of the Grizzly is probably one of the best family films ever made. Twice in the movie the family gathers around the table while Walker says grace for the meal. In real life he's also a patriot. Back in about 1982 he made a pro-Second Amendment infomercial for The National Rifle Association. (That's actually what convinced me to join the NRA!) He spoke out against communism in the day and he holds strong conservative positions still.

Everybody knows what a great John Wayne fan I am, but before there was John Wayne, there was Clint Walker. And honestly, if there were more Clint Walker movies to rave about, I would be raving about them. His personal character and morality is much more Christian in nature than that of John Wayne (although that doesn't make me any less of a Duke fan!).

Clint Walker was my first and longest cowboy American hero. When I took a Creative Writing class in college we had an assignment to write a short story. I wrote a western about a mysterious frontiersman named Walker. I knew of Clint Walker long before I knew of Bobby Richardson. Richardson is my number one hero, and on my Bobby Richardson page I made the comment that if there is anybody I could meet before I die, I would want it to be him. Well, I haven't updated that page yet, but last year I met him, as is shown by the picture on the blog. Today I would say if there is anybody else in the world that I would like to meet before he dies or I do, it would be Clint Walker.

Looking back at my life one of the things that still makes Cheyenne so appealing to me are the lyrics of the song. They seem to describe me. I wandered through a number of things before settling in the military, and then I didn't get married or settle down until I had traveled the world and was 36 years old. And now I'm a missionary still following the winds of God's call to various parts of the world. I don't suppose I'll ever really settle down until I'm in heaven.

God bless you, Clint Walker. Thanks for wonderful memories.

Cheyenne, Cheyenne,
Where will you be camping tonight?
Lonely man, Cheyenne,
Will your heart stay free and light?
Dream, Cheyenne, of a girl you may never love;
Move along, Cheyenne, like the restless clouds up above.
The wind that blows, that comes and goes, has been your only home,
But will the wild wind one day cease and you no longer roam?
Move along, Cheyenne,
Next pasture's always so green.
Drifting on, Cheyenne,
Don't forget the things you have seen.
And when you will settle down, where will it be?
Cheyenne, Cheyenne.

Ian R. K. Paisley

Saturday one of the truly great statesmen and truly great preachers of our time passed from this life into the presence of the Lord. Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley was a giant of a man, both in physical stature and in political as well as spiritual influence on a world wide stage. Very deliberate in both speech and action, he packed three lifetimes into one as the pastor of the Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, a Member of the British Parliament, and a Member of the European Parliament. He was a man who stood in the gap unafraid to fight political or ecclesiastical battles, and was a force to be reckoned with for over fifty years.

Dr. Paisley was a tall, barrel-chested man with a voice that thundered when he spoke. No one who ever heard him came away unaffected. He was a compelling man, you either liked him or you didn't, but there was no middle ground. He was a leader in the Fundamentalist movement and a defender of the absolute authority of the Scriptures without compromise. In 1951, at the young age of 25, he founded the Free Presbyterian Church movement in Northern Ireland. He became involved in Ulster politics often taking to the streets to organize protests, and had such a huge following that when arrested and jailed for an illegal assembly in 1968, thousands took to the streets to protest his imprisonment. Upon his release the attendance at his church doubled.

He was a tireless campaigner against the Irish Republican Army and in 1970 won a seat in the Stormont Parliament in Belfast, and became a member of the British Parliament. In 1973 he founded the Democratic Unionist Party to oppose the Ulster Unionist Party, which had controlled Ulster politics since 1922. In 2005 the DUP overtook the UUP as the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland. In 1979 Paisley won an overwhelming vote to the European Parliament where he gained a reputation for standing up for all of his constituents regardless of their religious affiliation. Never far away from controversy, however, he was once forcibly removed from the Parliament for repeatedly interrupting the speaker and declaring Pope John Paul II to be the Antichrist.

As a preacher he was every bit as tireless defending the fundamentals of the Christian faith. It was my privilege to have heard him speak many times on the campus of Bob Jones University. He was popular among the students and never disappointed. He also had a sense of humor that he carefully crafted into his messages. He once said that when he came to BJU he always picked passages that included a verse eight because he said, "I know how you like to hear me pronounce 'A-yet.'"

Paisley was a staunch Calvinist, while Bob Jones repudiated the Calvinist doctrine. It did not affect the enduring friendship between Paisley and the Joneses. He was invited to speak shortly after the new Founder's Memorial Amphitorium was opened on the BJU campus in 1974. The auditorium seated 7,000, and had a huge speaker system over the platform, but bugs in the system often caused it to buzz on and off when someone was speaking. While Paisley was preaching in a chapel service it began to buzz. He stopped, looked up, and then said, "It sounds like bees in the tulips." If you know anything about Calvinism you'll understand the joke, but it went over the heads of many of us that morning who were not Bible majors. When the Internal Revenue Service had revoked Bob Jones University's tax exempt status in 1980, Paisley mentioned that they both had similar problems. We had our IRS, while in Northern Ireland they had their IRA.

I met him personally only one time. I was walking passed the Fine Arts Building on the campus just as he came out of the door of a guest apartment on the side of the building. He greeted me and enjoined me in conversation for a couple of minutes. In spite of his stature he was not too important to take time to talk to a nobody student like me. In our brief encounter he learned that I had a class with his daughter, Rhonda, who was also a student. With a sly smile he winked at me and asked me if I had asked her out yet. "No," I said, "but I like her Irish accent." "Ah, yes," he said and laughed.

As a speaker he was always purposeful and methodical, almost as if he had intentionally chosen every word to give his messages the greatest impact. He was a master at pause and effect in his style. In the pulpit he would pray at the beginning of each message and he always ended the prayer by saying, "To this end I take, thank God He undertakes ... for me. Amen and amen." His messages were never simple devotionals, they were theological landmarks, which he skillfully presented in a clear, simple and understandable manner. At Bible Conference in 1993 he preached the greatest message I have ever heard from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, keying on verse 24. He began by examining the arguments of unbelievers against God, and then totally destroyed them with Scripture.

"The Jews say, 'if only God would give us a sign.' Ah, but that's exactly what He did," Paisley said softly. "He gave them a sign in the form of the Son of God," he continued, his volume level rising. Then he roared, "Who is He? He is none other than Chrrrist, the power ... of God, ... and Chrrrist, the wisdom ... of God." I will never forget the thunderclap of his voice as he raised his right arm and rolled the "r" in Christ, and then raised his left arm as he did it again. I bought a tape of the message and played it over and over until I wore it out. One thing that was always evident in his messages was the absolute exaltation of Christ.

Politically, Dr. Paisley seems to have softened his tone in his later years, even agreeing to a compromise arrangement with Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein organization, the IRA terrorists, in order to bring peace to Northern Ireland. But as long as he had breath, he still preached Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God. Fundamentalism has lost a great warrior, but he would be disappointed if we were to mourn his passing. Speaking of death he once said, "If you hear in the press that Ian Paisley is dead, don't believe a word of it. I'll be more alive than ever. I'll be singing as I sang never before."

And so he is.

The Star Spangled Banner

Two hundred years ago today one of the defining moments in American history took place at a star-shaped fort on the Patapsco River near Baltimore, Maryland. The British had invaded the United States and for a few weeks after they had captured Washington City, the future of America as an independent nation was in the balance. At Fort McHenry the British found an immoveable obstacle and the independence of a nation was secured. What is most remembered about the battle, however, is a poem written by a lawyer describing the battle and the anxious anticipation of the outcome.

Internet legends are notorious for stretching the truth, or just outright deception, and sometime ago one appeared claiming that the soldiers defending the fort literally gave their lives stacking their bodies up to hold the flag in position when the flagpole had been damaged. Recently somebody made a YouTube video of the battle purporting to have done extensive research in the preparation, and only embellishing it with a little dialogue. It is heart stirring and patriotic sounding, but it is all false. It is only a regurgitation of the phony story that has been floating around the Internet. The truth of the Battle of Fort McHenry is far different, and it is wildly patriotic without the deception of the Internet legend.

It begins with the British Empire. One of the enigmas of world history is how the tiny island nation of England became the largest empire in terms of both territory and influence that the world has ever seen. Protected by the natural barriers of the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the North Sea, the British isles have not been successfully invaded since the Normans under William the Conqueror landed on its shores in 1066. The Normans were French and for centuries England claimed the northern part of France as its own possession until at end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 they were driven off the continent.

The English then turned to the sea and after defeating the mighty Spanish Armada in 1588, became the greatest maritime power in the history of the world. In spite of its small size, well trained and equipped British armies occupied and built a colonial empire that stretched from Canada to the Cape of Good Hope, across Africa and the Middle East to India, Malaya, and Singapore, and into the South Pacific to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. In 1707 Scotland united with England and Wales to create the United Kingdom, which Ireland then joined in 1801. For over three hundred years Great Britain dominated world affairs. From 1688 to 1763 the British fought four wars with the French, Spanish and Austrians, collectively known as the French and Indian Wars, in which they were victorious in every one.

The British then virtually stood alone against Napoleon as he conquered Europe in the early 1800s, and at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Lord Nelson's victory over the French fleet effectively ended France's standing as a sea power. But there was one thorn in the British side, the Declaration of Independence and thirteen American colonies becoming the United States of America after defeating the British in the American Revolution. The Americans owed part of their success to the support of the Marquis de Lafayette and the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse.

The British were looking for a way to get back at their former colonies and began stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing American seamen into the British Navy to fight the Napoleonic Wars. The practice had been going on for years when it reached a breaking point and in 1812 President James Madison called for a declaration of war against Britain. The United States entered the War of 1812 on the side of the French. The war has sometimes been called the Second American War for Independence, because the British came back to their former colonies with the intent of retaking them.

After two years the outcome was still in question when Napoleon's mighty army collapsed in 1814 after a disastrous campaign in Russia. Sixteen thousand British troops were then sent from Europe to Canada to drive south in a pincer move to join a British army led by General Robert Ross moving north up the Chesapeake Bay. After defeating an American army at the Battle of Bladensburg, the British occupied Washington City and burned many government buildings including the White House, and in the process took a Washington doctor, William Beanes, prisoner. Beanes had found some British stragglers looting, arrested them, and took them to the British garrison, whereupon he was promptly arrested. As President Madison was fleeing the city, his wife, Dolly, famously rescued America's founding documents, the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Ross then embarked his army on Navy ships, which sailed down the Potomac and back up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. Baltimore was a port city with shipyards that the British believed were outfitting and supplying privateers. Determined to capture and destroy the port, the British landed Ross and his army of about 4,500 men at North Point to the east of Baltimore on September 12, 1814, and then sailed 19 ships up the bay to the Baltimore harbor.

A Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, was asked to help secure the release of Dr. Beanes. At Baltimore he met Colonel John Skinner, a government prisoner exchange agent. They approached the British flagship HMS Tonnant under a flag of truce on September 5, and were treated to dinner with Rear Admiral George Cockburn and General Ross. The release of Dr. Beanes was agreed to, but in the process Key and Skinner had overheard the British battle plans. They were forced then to remain on board with Beanes until the campaign was over.

Ross marched his army toward Baltimore until he ran into a small force under Brigadier General John Stricker, whose purpose was to delay the British advance while the Americans dug in and prepared for an attack at the city. Ross was killed in the skirmish, and his army sat out the night in a rainstorm before advancing on the city on the 13th. At the gates of the city, however, the British found 12,000 well-entrenched American troops and withdrew to North Point.

Fort McHenry sat at the end of a peninsula between two branches of the Patapsco River. The Northwest Branch, which passed to the north of the fort, led into Baltimore harbor. The Middle Branch passed to the south, and also had two smaller forts up river, Covington and Babcock, to support McHenry. McHenry was commanded by Major George Armistead who had a compliment of about one thousand men. Armistead's nephew, Lew Armistead, would give his life leading Pickett's Charge at the third day of Gettysburg forty-nine years later during the American Civil War. The fort was named for James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution, whose son John fought in the battle.

The bombardment of Fort McHenry began on the morning of the 13th. The British had guns, mortars and rockets that could reach the fort from over two miles away. McHenry had only twenty short-range guns and was unable to return fire in the early hours of the battle. Believing the fort had been damaged, Admiral Cockburn moved his fleet in closer for more effective fire, but when in range, Armistead's guns replied so furiously that Cockburn had to move back out of range. The bombardment continued all day and into the night when rain began to fall.

Armistead ordered a small rain flag raised during the storm and through the night the light from the streaking rockets and exploding bombs cast a glow over the fort revealing the flag. By morning nearly 1800 projectiles had been fired at the fort. The most intense moment came when a mortar, a large canon ball launched in an arc to fly over the walls and explode within the fort, landed near the powder magazine. Providentially, it did not explode. The magazine was in an exposed, unprotected area of the fort, so the troops went to work moving the powder and shot to covered, secure areas.

After dark the British loaded 1200 men into small boats and rowed up the Middle Branch to put troops ashore behind the fort. After safely landing they fired several signal rockets to alert the fleet, but the rockets gave away their position. Heavy fire from Forts Covington and Babcock forced the troops to withdraw with severe losses.

As dawn began to break on the 14th, twenty-five hours after the bombardment began, the rain stopped and Armistead ordered a 30 x 42 foot battle flag raised to show the fort was still standing. Four U.S. soldiers had been killed and 24 wounded, including Private William Williams, a run-away slave, who died two weeks later.

Eight miles away at North Point, Key, Skinner and Beanes had remained on the deck of the ship and watched the bombardment through the night. In the morning the guns fell silent as the rain stopped and a fog rolled over the bay. Not knowing the outcome they apprehensively waited. Then as the rising sunlight burned away the fog they saw the huge battle flag waving defiantly in the breeze. McHenry had not surrendered. Suddenly inspired, Key began to write out the story in verse on the back of an envelope.

In New York the British fleet on Lake Champlain had been defeated at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11, and the division of troops from Europe were ordered back to Canada. Peace talks were already underway in Europe, but the British, wanting to punish their former colonies, would be disappointed. These two losses strengthened the U.S. position and led to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24. Two weeks later on January 8, 1815, not knowing that the war was officially over, the British suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The British would recover their pride six months later with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, but the Americans had secured for the second time their independence from Britain and their right to be free.

Key published his poem originally as The Defense of Fort McHenry. Later it took on its more popular name, The Star Spangled Banner. It was not until 1931, however, that a resolution from Congress officially made it our National Anthem. Sung to the lively tune of an old drinking song, it is a rousing hymn that begins and ends the first verse with a question. The first reveals the suspense of impatiently waiting through the night to find the outcome upon which the fate of the nation rested. It describes the intensity of the rockets and bomb blasts lighting up the flag and proving it still flew.

The second question is timeless. Does it still wave today? Is it still the proud banner once respected and admired around the world? Are the American people still free? Is America still the home of the brave?

Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

It became one of baseball's first traditions to sing the anthem before games, and then the idea spread to other sports and events as well. There were actually four verses written, but only the first and last are regularly sung, and most often only the first. The last verse assures the listener that America will always rise to causes that are just, and praises God in heaven, in Whom we trust, for preserving the nation by His power. With that trust in God the flag will continue to wave in triumph over the land.

Oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes, and the wars desolation.
Blessed with victory and peace may the heaven rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just
And this be our motto, In God is our Trust.
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We can proudly say today that yes, it does still wave, we are still free, and we still have brave heroes giving their lives on battlefields around the world to preserve our liberties. But considering the direction the government has gone in recent years, the moral decay of the culture, and the war on Christianity within our own country, one has to wonder whether or not the next generation will be able to say, "Yes it does still wave and we are still free."

Let's Take America Back

Speaking to a crowd of union members at the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit on Labor Day, Vice President Joe "the Plagiarizer" Biden said, "It's time to take America back."

I'd like to know from whom? Or from what? This is the same thing the Democrats were saying in 2008 when Obama was running for president. Led by Michael Moore it became almost a leftist chant. "We want our country back," they shouted.

In 2008 the question was the same. From whom? Or from what? The leftist anti-God, gay-loving, abortion worshipping America the Democrats were clamoring for then had never existed. Leftist morality, or should I say immorality, and godless values had been slowly strangling America since at least the 1960s when God was thrown out of our public schools and government institutions. Abortion, which has always been an abomination to anyone with a conscience and love of humanity, suddenly became a woman's right to choose in 1973, and since then nothing has been the same. Jimmy Carter gave us big government and feckless leadership, and after a revival of real American values in the 1980s, Bill Clinton gave us a playboy nonchalant skepticism for anything truthful or righteous. W started out well, but after six years of an unending strategy in the War on Terror that refused to recognize Islam as the enemy, and his unwillingness to control the national debt resulting in even bigger government, there was a resurgence of the Democrat Party in 2006 leading to the election of Obama in 2008.

Now we have feckless disdain for the Constitution, as well as America, sitting in the White House. We have a president with a weak-kneed inability to make command decisions, combined with an arrogant, deliberate disregard for the truth, absolutely devoid of any character, probity or righteousness. We have a bigger government than ever, and a national debt that is spiraling out of control to heights we never even dreamed of. We have surrendered our morality to a homosexual agenda seeking to destroy marriage and the family, we have a gun control lobby that argues that even if we save one life it is worth it, while the same people push for government paid abortions on demand to the tune of 4,000 a day, without regard for the lives of mothers lost or damaged from botched abortions (which are not minimal), not to mention the babies slaughtered. In Obama we have Carter, Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all wrapped up in one package.

Moore and the leftists didn't take their country back, they stole it from true patriotic Americans and remade it into a new one. We are no longer the country our Founding Fathers created or envisioned.

So the question is, what America is Biden talking about? Is this an admission that Obama's radical left wing American destroying polices are wrong? Is he unhappy with the moral sewer Obama has taken us into? Is he unhappy with the disrespect and disregard we are given by Putin, North Korea, Iran, and just about everybody else in the world? Is he saying we need to take America back to where it was before Obama? Is that W's America? Reagan's America? How about Clinton's America?

At least Clinton had the sense to get before the public and apologize for his failures. Obama blames Bush. Is Biden tired of playing second fiddle to the Nero in the White House?

It is time to take America back alright. Back to the principles and vision of the Founding Fathers and lawful government under the Constitution. Back to the God of our Fathers.

Democrats tend to ridicule and mock anyone espousing the Founders' vision as unprogressive and going back to a primitive time where women were chattel and abortions were performed in back alleys. Neither of these are true, and no true conservative wants to take away the gains women, or minorities, have made that are constitutionally lawful, such as voting and equal opportunity. But a women's right to choose abortion and homosexual marriage are not constitutional rights. Neither is it progressive to continue a political, economic, social or military agenda that is driving America to the ash heap of nations.

"We all want progress," C.S. Lewis wrote, "but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."

So is this what Biden is talking about? Or was his meaning a little more focused like getting back to the days when corrupt union bosses controlled labor? Or is this just another of his monumental gaffes, like the paper he plagiarized to get his college degree?

Maybe it's time conservatives started clamoring, "Let's take America back." The November elections are a good place to start.