By George, Sherrod Brown an authentic lefty?

 When we spotted a headline on the Beacon Journal's op-ed page that said "Sherrod Brown,  authentic progressive," it appeared to be an accurate  reference to the authentic  Ohio Democratic senator.  So imagine my shock when the columnist was George Will.  Was he really paying homage to the guy that he described as  a "leftist"?

No dear reader, he wasn't. Instead he cleverly  used Brown, as  "rumpled"  and "hoarse" as he may be,  as a wedge to get at his real target: um, gender-crazy Democratic activists who are clamoring to nominate Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren in 2016.

( I will dispense with professional courtesy at  this point and refer to the sniffy conservative columnist only as George because any sentence beginning with his surname  sounds ungrammatical, as in "Will wrote..." or "Will asserted...")

From a point early in his gender diatribe, George  slams both women as phony or theatrical leftists and offers up Brown as the "authentic progressive" to fill in the blank at the top of a hypothetical Democratic ticket.

Oh, the subject has come up more than once.  Brown  deflected an  insistent question from MSNBC's Chris Matthews, saying he is "quite happy where I am but, thank you".   And to the Huffington Post he said: "I have no interest.  I mean zero interest.  I love what I do.  I think if you want to be a really good senator you shouldn't   be looking over your shoulder and running for president. Zero interest.  I appreciate the question but no thanks."

Nothing, of course, is ever final in politics, particularly in George's  tantrums against female lefties.   And Brown's intense fund-raising efforts for Democratic candidates across the land does cast him as an authentic team  that more than a few  of his colleagues will remember down the road.

But George has a widening reputation for his erring punditry.  Item:  Romney would win in a landslide!    So George's readers might conclude that Brown is in fact  an authentic  crypto-right winger.  In this instance, however, we'll stick with the headline. Thanks anyway,George.

Who profits when a soldier is killed over there?

THERE OUGHT TO BE a stronger word than "outrage". Besides the Tea Partyers have largely appropriated the word, leaving little room for the other side to spill their emotions all over the lot. So whatever the synonym for hyper-outrage is, shouldn't all of us turn to it for a report in Bloomberg Markets Magazine's September issue about how big insurance companies are fattening up on the life insurance payoffs for American soldiers killed in the never-ending Mideast wars?

The system was tearfully described to the magazine by Cindy Lohman, whose son was killed in Afghanistan:

She got a big envelope from Prudential Financial, Inc., which contained a letter advising her that it was holding a $400,000 life insurance payout for safekeeping as one of the agents of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The envelop also contained an item that, Lohman said, looked like a checkbook. Prudential said the money would be safe and would be placed in an interesting-bearing Alliance Account . Months later, when she tried to pay for a new bed with a Prudential "check". It was rejected. Why? The insurance money had been placed in a corporate account that was paying Prudential 4.8 pct. Mrs. Lohman's interest rate was one pct.! "I'm shocked," Mrs. Lohman told the magazine. "It's a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier. Is there anything lower?"

Many insurance life insurance companies are engaged in such practices.

Said the magazine:

In the past decade, these so-called retained-asset accounts have become standard operating procedure in an industry that touches virtually ever American: There are more than 300 million active life insurance polices in the U.S., and the industry holds $4.6 trillion in assets, according to the American Council of Life Insurers.

Meantime, while Wall Street is boasting of record profits, none other than publishing and real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman was complaining loudly to Chris Matthews that the Obama Administration was forever "demonizing business." He became flustered when Matthews reminded of the profitable state of Wall Street these days.

So I would have to say to Mort, if all of this sounds quite"demonizing" to you, so be it. But Obama's demons obviously haven't depressed your fortune: According to Forbes, you were the 382nd richest person in America in 2006. In 2010, it ranked you 147th. With more than two years of Obama's demons tormenting the insurance companies and you, there's just no telling whether your ranking will be in the single digits.

Rep. John Campbell: In need of a language tutor

AMONG THE MANY boasts on Rep. John Campbell's home page is that he is a co-sponsor of legislation to make English the national language. After hearing the California Republican's evasive gibberish in a debate with Chris Matthews the other night, I would advise him to begin with some English lessons for himself.

Campbell is a co-sponsor of a bill that would require all presidential candidates to reveal a birth certificate. (Hint, hint.) When Matthews demanded to know whether the bill wasn't really playing to the "wackos" who insist that Obama is a foreigner and ineligible to serve in the Oval Office, Campbell insisted that his effort has nothing to do with Obama and - hint, hint - "as far as I know" Obama is an American.. As far as I know? Campbell seemed a bit blind-sided when Matthews held up a copy of Obama's birth certificate, which, for the congressman, was hardly irrefutable proof for him because it was on a TV screen that he was unable to read.

Pure blather. And as Matthews noted, a play to the paranoia that has existed in the right-wingers who gathered under their coconut trees last year to raise hell and havoc. In fairness, Campbell finally hedged on Obama, continuing to argue that his legislation only applied to the future. On the other hand, his co-sponsor, Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, says he couldn't swear on a stack of bibles that Obama is one of us. The wackos aren't the only sillies who spread ridiculous gossip. Some of them sponsor legislation.

Palin and liberal Dems: UNSTOPPABLE?

TO FILL IN a slow news day, MSNBC'S Chris Matthews profoundly asked his guests, "What must Sarah Palin do to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?"

Hmmm.... That's easy: Millions of progressive Democrats will volunteer to support her candidacy all the way to the convention.