THE ULTIMATE LIBERAL by Tim Siggia

THE ULTIMATE LIBERAL

By Tim Siggia

September 10, 2007

In roughly one month we will once again celebrate the memory of the Ultimate Liberal. No, that wouldn't be George Washington, who never told a lie, nor would it be Bill Clinton, who never told the truth -- nor would it even be Jimmy Carter, who never knew the difference. It would be a man from a long bygone era, one who epitomized what liberalism was all about long before the concept ever came into being in the sense we now know it.

This man was an Italian sailor named Cristoforo Colombo, whose name somehow got corrupted into Christopher Columbus by some historian who obviously didn't like Italian names. Not content with the accepted sea route to India which had been long proven to in fact get the traveler to that destination, Colombo began touting the idea of a new route to India which entailed sailing due west, even though it was common knowledge at the time that India lie to the east, not the west, of Europe, and despite having not so much as a shred of tangible evidence to back up his supposition. Unsuccessful at selling his fellow Italians on the idea, Colombo finally found potential takers in the Spanish monarchs Fernando and Isabel. (Not Ferdinand and Isabella. There go those #$^%&$% historians again!) With rhetoric that must have made Mario Cuomo look like an amateur by comparison, Colombo persuaded the king and queen of Spain to provide him with three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and that which would serve as his flagship, the Santa Maria. His ships procured and outfitted, Colombo set sail.

When he set out, Colombo did not know where he was going. When he got there, he did not know where he was. And when he returned to Spain, he did not know where he had been. And, in true liberal fashion, he did all of this on government funding. Also, once again in true liberal fashion, he not only failed to accomplish his original mission, but along the way he took credit for the discovery of two continents he in fact had never even seen -- continents which would later be named for another Italian sailor named Amerigo Vespucci, whose name somehow got corrupted into Americus Vespucius. (Is anybody seeing a pattern here with these Latinized names? Apparently the historians of the day wanted us all to believe that these men, both of whom in fact were 15th-Century Italians, wore togas and olive wreaths and spent their spare time hanging around the Forum eating grapes and discussing philosophy with Marcus Aurelius.)

No, it wasn't America that Colombo discovered. Rather, it was a group of islands known to this day as the West Indies, because the Italian captain sailing under the Spanish flag who accidentally discovered them thought he was in India -- when, in fact, he had no idea where he really was. None of this matters, however, because even though he never got to India, Colombo had intended to go there, and that's what really counts. It's the same argument liberals have used ever since to excuse their failures in everything from the New Deal to the Great Society and beyond. It's not what you actually do, but rather, what you intend to do, that marks your character and makes you successful. And, give the devil his due, Cristoforo Colombo -- or, if we really must call him that, Christopher Columbus -- did have a number of successes that must, for the record, be noted.

Without him, the Western World might have remained undiscovered, even though there is evidence to suggest that the Vikings were here first. Without him, tobacco and the practice of setting it on fire and inhaling it into the lungs might never have been introduced to Europe. Without him, the phrase "American Indian" would have been considered an oxymoron. And, while we of course cannot blame him for the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, Chuck Shumer, and, of course, Bill and Hillary Clinton, it just might be possible that without Cristoforo Colombo, a.k.a. Christopher Columbus, these stellar entries in the Who's Who of American Liberalism would have never had a prototype.

And, on a more personal note, without our beloved Colombo, Americans of Italian descent like the writer of this column would have never had their answer to Saint Patrick's Day.

Buon dia di Colombo.