It’s time again to ring in the new year and wring out the old.

No, I’m not late, and I’ll tell you why. It started with the president promising me, “If you like your old year, you can keep it.”

(And then, oddly, he said, “Period.” That’s right: In reading his teleprompter, he read aloud the period. But not the comma.)

Later he changed his mind about keeping my old year, but his change of mind was for my own good. He explained that my old year was “substandard.” “Bare bones,” he said. He told me it was a “bad apple.” Not just for him, he said, but for me, too. So he mandated a new year for me.

The new one comes with free maternity coverage in case I want to become a mother and free contraception in case I don’t. It costs 40 percent more, but hey, good free stuff costs good money, right?

Back to the timeliness of my column. I generously gave money to the Obama re-election campaign, and coincidentally, he generously gave me an extension on my new year. Under the extension he gave me, my new year starts after the 2014 elections in November. So this column is not three weeks late but 11 months early, thank you very much.

Speaking of extensions in the old year, the Syrian dictator was reducing to bare bones thousands of the people to whom he dictates. Obama drew a (drum roll) “red line” warning him not to do so with chemical weapons. The dictator thinks of himself as a dictator, not a dictated, and so he proceeded to do precisely that. Obama gave him an extension (or perhaps erasure) of the red line.

In Russia — formerly known as the “Workers’ Paradise” and now known as a festering sore of corruption, alcohol and crime with 7,000 nuclear warheads for sale, use or rent Continue reading →