Forgive Republican candidate Mitt Romney for his alleged failure to adequately explain why he paid “only” 14 percent of his income in taxes.

The honest answer — “Well, because my accountants couldn’t figure out how to get them any lower” — does not work in this or very many other election years. Romney seemed flat-footed because, like most business people, he seeks to minimize costs and expenses.

This includes taxes.

A normal wealthy-and-proud-of-it guy would have said: “Let me get this straight, pal. I’m not supposed to take every legal advantage provided me by the tax laws to reduce my taxes?” For what it’s worth, about 15 percent of Romney’s last two years of income went to charity — substantially higher than the percentage given by the Obamas or Joe Biden’s $380 (not a typo) of his quarter-million dollar income in 2006.

“Tax savings” allows people more money to save, spend, invest, bequeath and donate. On some level, even Democrats understand this.

Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is one of them. In 2001, Massachusetts lowered it state income tax rate. But the legislature showed mercy for the Bay State’s guilt-ridden, tax-hike-supporting liberals. The tax form allowed the filer to check a special box — and pay the old, higher rate. Out of more than 3 million tax filers in 2004, a tiny fraction of 1 percent — 930 taxpayers — volunteered to pay the higher rate. Among those who declined the opportunity was Mr. Frank. Frank explained, “I don’t trust the legislative leadership and Gov. (Mitt) Romney to make the right decisions.” Instead, Frank said, “I’ll donate the money myself.” What?! Charity might better spend money than can government, which, by its nature, operates less efficiently and more expensively than can private welfare?

Democrat Sen. Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio (served 1974, 1976-1995) was another tax-supporting Democrat not too keen on paying more in taxes than he needed to. But after retirement, the wealthy Metzenbaum moved to Florida, which, unlike Ohio, is a state with no estate or personal income taxes. This saved him millions.

Democrat John Edwards’ wife Elizabeth, during the 2004 campaign, said rich politicians like her husband reveal “character” when they vote against financial “interest” by supporting higher taxes.

This is the same John Edwards who, as a trial lawyer winning big jury awards, established a separate sub-corporation to accept the money, paying him through dividends rather than income. Perfectly legal. But this allowed Edwards to avoid some $600K in Medicare payroll taxes.

The Republican re-embrace of former Speaker Newt Gingrich says a lot about whom he sees as his opponent — and it isn’t just President Barack Obama. It’s the media.

If not for major media’s embrace, Obama would still be sitting in the Senate, perhaps mulling another run for the presidency. A UCLA economist-political scientist recently tried to measure how the liberal media bias influences the way people vote. He concluded that this bias gives the Democrat candidate 8 to 10 percentage points.

Republicans understand this. So does Gingrich — on a very deep level. He knows the media dislike him above and beyond their anti-conservative Republican disdain. That he is testy, no-nonsense, whip smart and knowledgeable makes him formidable. That he engineered the 1994 GOP takeover of the House and pushed former President Bill Clinton into governing in the center makes him effective.

The good news for the media is that Gingrich is a Southern white male Christian Republican. He belongs to a group for which no advocacy organization exists to play the race/sex/religion card when Gingrich gets called — on-air by cable hosts and pundits — “racist,” “disgusting” and a “pig.”

Gingrich bites back. Hard. Thus, he addresses the question of his messy personal life while hitting the CNN moderator for bringing this up as the first question. Gingrich knows he lacks the Reaganesque “aw, shucks” persona. Reagan used his sunny disposition to counter the media’s attempt to portray him as a dangerous nutcase whose finger should never go near the nuclear button — not unlike how many try to portray Gingrich.

Gingrich will call out the media for ignoring the bombshell that Obama’s mother did not fight with her insurer over her medical bills, as Obama movingly and repeatedly told Americans in making his case for ObamaCare.

Gingrich will question why the major media behaved so indifferently for so long about matters like Obama’s 20-year association with a racist, anti-Semitic pastor.

Gingrich will ask why the press yawns when the Obama administration stops using expressions like “shovel ready,” “save or create” millions of jobs and “stimulus.”

Gingrich will remind Americans about Obama’s promise to end the influence of “lobbyists.” By any normal understanding of the term, the White House remains a lobby-rich environment where Obama officials insist on lobbyist meetings off-premises. This means there is no White House log, allowing the administration to brag about an alleged decrease in lobbying.

Gingrich will point out the hypocrisy of being called a “lobbyist” though he never registered as one.

Yet the media fail to apply this flexible definition of “lobbyist” when it comes to the Obama administration.

Gingrich will ask why the media remain so incurious about Obama’s grades at prep school, Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law — even as Obama admitted, in his first book, that he wasn’t much of a student.

Why does President Barack Obama enjoy a no-fly zone on gay marriage?

The Republican presidential contenders, with the exception of libertarian Ron Paul, have never supported gay marriage. Barack Obama, on the other hand, in a span of 16 years, has gone from supporting it, to “undecided,” to opposition, to a position that he currently describes as “evolving.”

Obama, right now, opposes gay marriage — just as does Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. In 2008, presidential candidate Obama sounded Santorum-like when he said: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian … it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

When Santorum, the pro-life, anti-gay-marriage former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, was challenged in New Hampshire by pro-same-sex-marriage teenagers, he attempted to use the Socratic method to explain his opposition:

“How does it affect you, personally, if two men or two women get married?” Santorum was asked.

“Are we saying everyone should have the right to marry?”

“Yes!” shouted the crowd.

So anyone can marry anyone else?” Santorum asked.

“Yes!”

“So anybody can marry several people?”

This elicited some silence, mumbles and a few “no’s.”

“So if you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that OK?” Calling the crowd back to order, Santorum continued, “If your point is, people should be allowed to do whatever makes them happy, right?”

“As long as they don’t harm other people,” a young woman replied.

“Who determines whether they’re harming people or not?”

“Well, anybody can understand that.”

“Everybody can understand it. … So we’re not going to have courts?” said Santorum.

“This isn’t, it’s morals, like …”

“So there is some objective standard?” asked Santorum.

“It’s morally right for two men to have the same rights as a man and a woman.”

“If it makes three people happy to get married, based on what you just said, what makes that wrong and what you said right?” said Santorum.

“That’s irrelevant. … That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I know. …”

“I’m talking about the basic right that you give you and another woman.”

“OK. You know, it’s important if we’re going to have a discussion based on rational, reasoned thought, that we employ reason.

“OK? And reason says that if you think it’s OK for two, then you have to differentiate with me as to why it’s not OK for three.”

The young people wanted nothing to do with Socrates.

They’re coming for your children! They’re coming for the womenfolk! Then they’re coming after you! Norman Lear, the famous television show producer, offered this hysterically paranoid assessment of the allegedly growing and presumably insidious power of “the right”:

“I want to suggest that we lefties start laying claim to what we see as ‘sacred’ and serve it up proudly to the religious right — to the James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove … hatemongers, sheathed in sanctity, and to the Koch brothers, the types that fund them and use them so effectively for their own political power-grabbing purposes. Over the past several decades, the power-grabbing right has built a powerful infrastructure — radio and TV stations and networks. They’ve built think tanks, colleges and law schools.”

How accurate is Lear’s assessment of the supposed power and influence of the right? Is the right steadily forming a formidable alliance of academics, media outlets, websites, etc., that serve as a fourth column for the “right wing”? Even if this were true, what about the power of the left?

Let’s look at the mainstream media. In “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind,” UCLA economist and political science professor Dr. Tim Groseclose uses three different methods to determine the SQ — or slant quotient — of the major media outlets. Of the 20 most prominent news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, “Good Morning America” and Time magazine, he found only two that leaned to the right: The Washington Times and Fox News.

True, the network evening news shows no longer hold the market share of years past, but nearly 25 million Americans still turn to Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley each night. That means eight times as many viewers watch ABC/NBC/CBS as watch “The O’Reilly Factor,” the top-rated cable news/talk program.

When people like Lear speak of the growing power of the right-wing cabal, they believe Fox leads the charge. And Bill O’Reilly is clearly the face of the Fox News network. But as hated as O’Reilly is by the left, how legitimate is their description of O’Reilly as a right-wing ideologue?

O’Reilly is not even a Republican. He is registered as an independent and opposes the death penalty. He supported — at least initially — the Senate’s so-called “amnesty bill.” His opposition to ObamaCare is based on cost rather than the Constitution. He believes that in “a system where everybody is guaranteed the same health care … whether you have a lot of money or no money, you’re gonna get the same health care.

As “Person of the Year,” Time magazine named “The Protester.” The subhead read, “From the Arab Spring to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow.”

Well, yes, but what about the lack of American black protesters? Good Lord, where is the racial diversity/inclusion/proportional representation?

Back in the day, the tea party’s alleged lack of black participants was beyond worrisome to the media. The lack of black faces in the crowd allowed the major media to describe the tea party as racially exclusionary, if not … racist!

“Some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement,” said Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., “would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. said tea partiers can “go straight to hell.” A New York Times op-ed described tea partiers as “overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.”

So the formula is set: Lack of blacks plus “overwhelmingly white” equals racism. Right? Not so fast.

This formula does not apply to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is as white as an Idaho picket fence. A Washington Post opinion piece cites a survey that found “African Americans, who are 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, make up only 1.6 percent of Occupy Wall Street.” And blacks are 25 percent of New York City’s population. Occupy Wall Street was a home game for them. By contrast, 6 percent of tea party supporters, according to an April 2010 Gallup poll, are black. That’s almost four times the number of blacks who make up Occupy Wall Street.

Why so few blacks in the Occupy movement?

A Washington Post opinion piece offered one reason — black resignation: “Perhaps black America’s absence is sending a message to the Occupiers: ‘We told you so! Nothing will change. We’ve been here already. It’s hopeless.’”

But blacks view the economy differently — and a lot more optimistically — than do whites.

Despite around 16 percent unemployment, as compared to the 8.6 percent national rate, and nearly 50 percent black teenage unemployment, blacks feel better about the economy than do whites. A February 2011 Washington Post survey found that 24 percent of blacks were “very” or “somewhat satisfied” with the economy, compared to 12 percent of whites.

A recent NBC poll found that by a lopsided 73 percent to 19 percent, most Americans considered the country on the “wrong track.” But not blacks. Forty-nine percent of blacks think the country is “headed in the right direction” versus 38 percent who do not.

The next best thing to calling a Republican “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” or “Uncle Tom” (where appropriate) is to call him “out of touch.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the latest wealthy Republican to be called “out of touch.” The proof? Why, he offered to bet rival Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The amount offered was — gasp — $10,000! This, of course, makes him another born-on-third-base-and-thought-he-hit-a-triple Republican. The Democratic National Committee pounced and immediately put out a video: “Mitt Romney: Simply Out of Touch — Ten Thousand Times Over.”

But which “elite, out-of-touch politician” considers a $172,200 annual salary “relatively modest” — Republican presidential hopeful Romney or President Barack Obama? Answer: Obama.

Whose $300K-per-year hospital-executive wife traveled to working-class Zanesville, Ohio, and complained about the high cost of her daughters’ summer camp, piano and dance lessons? Answer: Obama’s.

The then-U.S. senator was making $170K. The 2005-2009 median income in Zanesville: $28,854, almost $13,000 less than the national median.

Romney fits this role perfectly. Son of a former American Motors CEO and Michigan governor, Romney made a bundle buying and selling businesses. Pretty blond wife. Pretty kids. Every hair in place. What’s not to hate?

Never mind that there are more multimillionaire Democrat senators than multimillionaire Republican senators. Never mind that the average contribution to the DNC is larger than the average contribution to the RNC.

If not enough anecdotes exist to paint a Republican as a condescending patrician, why, just make something up. The New York Times wrote a phony story to slap the “elitist” label on former President George Herbert Walker Bush. At a grocers convention, Bush was intrigued by a device that could read torn bar code labels. Only one pool reporter was present, from a Texas paper, and he filed an unremarkable two-paragraph report on Bush’s tour at the convention.

The New York Times, however, ran a front-page story headlined, “Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed.” The Times falsely wrote that the allegedly clueless out-of-touch Bush was surprised by an ordinary checkout scanner.

Reacting to the Bush-didn’t-know-a-scanner assertion, a systems analyst for the National Grocers Association who showed Bush the scanner said: “The whole thing is ludicrous. What he was amazed about was the ability of the scanner to take that torn label and reassemble it.” Nevertheless, Bush’s image as a rich, out-of-touch patrician hurt.

Obama, on the other hand, is a “man of the people.”

But Obama has long enjoyed a very un-Joe Sixpack-like life.

When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., announced his intention not to seek re-election after a 32-year career, not one of the nightly news broadcast network anchors found time or space to mention either Frank’s central role in the housing meltdown or his congressional reprimand. Not one. Similarly, an Associated Press article headlined, “Democratic Rep. Barney Frank Announces Retirement,” mentioned the reprimand, but nada on Frank and the housing collapse.

ABC called him “one of the most familiar, powerful and colorful characters on Capitol Hill.” NBC said, “Among his legacies — besides his legendary sharp tongue — he was the first member of Congress to publicly acknowledge he was gay, back in 1987.” In a nearly 30-paragraph press release — uh, news article — headlined, “Barney Frank, a Top Liberal, Won’t Seek Re-election,” The New York Times sanitized, purged and whitewashed.

The “all the news that’s fit to print” newspaper, America’s most influential, left out a few things.

Frank relentlessly defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the “government sponsored entities” at the center of the housing meltdown. National Review editorialized: “It is as a champion of a different kind of pay-for-play operation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that the congressman did the most damage to the country.” Economist Thomas Sowell wrote last year, “No one contributed more to the policies behind the housing boom and bust, which led to the economic disaster we are now in, than Congressman Barney Frank.”

Sowell explains: “His powerful position on the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services gave him leverage to force through legislation and policies which pressured banks and other lenders to grant mortgage loans to people who would not qualify under the standards which had long prevailed. … With the federal regulators leaning on banks to make more loans to people who did not meet traditional qualifications — the ‘underserved population’ in political Newspeak — and quotas being given to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more of these riskier mortgages from the original lenders, critics pointed out the dangers in these pressures to meet arbitrary home ownership goals. But Barney Frank counter-attacked these critics.”

Whom did Frank blame when the housing meltdown — and Freddie and Fannie’s role in it — became obvious even to Frank? “Right-wing Republicans,” he said.

The Big Three nightly news anchors and the Times also managed to avoid any mention of Frank’s congressional reprimand for fixing the parking tickets of a male prostitute.

“Representative Frank,” writes National Review, “was reprimanded by the House for making misleading statements to a Virginia prosecutor on behalf of the prostitute — whom the congressman eventually put on his own payroll — and for having fixed dozens of parking tickets on this behalf.” Frank denied knowing that his lover, a convicted drug dealer, was running a prostitution business out of the congressman’s house.

The boyfriend, however, insisted that Frank knew about it.

I just interviewed MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews about his new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.”

You know things didn’t go well when, a few minutes after the interview concludes, Matthews’ booker emails my producer:

“I wish you would’ve let me know that Larry was planning on attacking Chris. Chris is always up for a good, healthy debate, but that was really not professional or cool.”

To which my talented, hardworking producer, Jason Rose, responded:

“Larry addressed historical accounts directly related to the subject matter of Mr. Matthews’ book. Larry doesn’t agree with the one-sidedness of the book’s portrayal of JFK.

“Mr. Matthews refused to address Larry’s issue with the book. He refused to debate. Larry made no personal attacks on Mr. Matthews, but tried to address the book’s shortcomings. Given Mr. Matthew’s typical on-air demeanor and style, Larry felt that a spirited debate would be more than manageable by Mr. Matthews.”

Matthews’ book ends in 1989 — as the Berlin Wall came crashing down:

“The Iron Curtain was being ripped aside. Communism was in its death throes. The Cold War was ending without the nuclear war we so feared. We had gotten through it alive, those of us who once hid under those little desks of ours.

“Thanks to him, I’d say. He’d come a long way from the kid who caused trouble at boarding school, from being Joe Kennedy’s son. In the time of our greatest peril, at the moment of ultimate judgment, an American president kept us from the brink, saved us really, kept the smile from being stricken from the planet.

“He did that. He, Jack Kennedy.”

My goodness.

Matthews seems to think that Kennedy “kept us from the brink” two times: first, by Kennedy’s valor in rescuing his crew from the PT 109 he skippered; and second, when he stood down Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and pushed the world back from thermonuclear war.

As to PT 109, Kennedy unquestionably acted heroically after a Japanese destroyer rammed his boat, splitting it in two and knocking most of the crew into the waters now filled with boat fuel. Matthews goes into great detail about what Kennedy did, how far he swam, how he tugged one crewman by a strap Kennedy pulled with his mouth as he swam — all powerful stuff, well told.

But Matthews says nothing about how and why Kennedy’s boat got into trouble in the first place. The History News Network notes:

“In the general election, Kennedy ran as a war hero. This was ironic. Though he deserved praise for his courage in the aftermath of the attack on PT 109, it had apparently sunk because he had been inattentive as a commander, as (Pulitzer-Prize winning author and historian) Garry Wills long ago pointed out. JFK himself worried that the events could justify either a medal or a court martial. In the end, he got the medal — after his father used his influence.”

Many have written about the less-than-movie-mythical opening scene to the PT 109 saga. But not Matthews, not even to dismiss the claims as untrue or as partisan hit pieces.

“He’s got it coming to him,” said Ben Bradlee, former editor of The Washington Post. “You can’t do that in this town anymore. Probably could do it 50 years ago, but you can’t do it now.”

The “he” was Herman Cain. The “that” means sexual harassment. And the “got it coming” means the media firestorm around the Republican front-runner as he deals with the sexual misconduct accusations that threaten to derail Cain’s surprisingly strong candidacy.

Bradlee made the Cain comment while at a book party for MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ new biography about the Democratic Party’s icon, John F. Kennedy, handsome, dashing and forever young — who screwed around big-time on his popular and elegant wife. When asked what he liked about Matthews’ new book, Bradlee said, “I like the guy who wrote it, and I like the guy he wrote it about.”

The irony seemed to be lost on Mr. Bradlee.

Bradlee wags his finger at Cain for alleged “sexual harassment” and insists, “He’s got it coming to him.” But on the same night, Bradlee celebrates a man who not only serially cheated, but who jeopardized national security by sleeping with the girlfriend of a big-time Chicago mobster.

Certainly, “it was a different time,” with the all-male reporter’s boys club looking the other way. But Kennedy kept his affairs secret from wife and country for a reason. Try telling your wife — even in the ’60s — “Honey, this afternoon — when you’re out with your lunch friends — I’m throwing a nude pool party. There may be, some, you know, some 20-something young ladies, some actually wearing bathing suits. Oh, then I’m going out with the girlfriend of a gangster. Don’t wait up.”

“Certainly, dear”??? “Have a good time”??? “I’ll leave the porch light on for you”???

Not likely. Even in the ’60s, on a deal like this, Harriet ditches Ozzie, June leaves Ward, and Lucy drops Ricky.

And if 15-year-old allegations of “sexual harassment” rate high on the Democrats’ character scale, please explain the deification of Bill Clinton. OK, he balanced the budget. But there was …

Paula Jones: About whom a Clinton surrogate said, “If you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.” Apparently you find $850K to settle a lawsuit. Clinton accused Jones of lying about sexual harassment and filing a lawsuit that lacked merit, then settled the case out of court for $850K.

Charles Krauthammer of Fox News: “Do you think that race, being a strong black conservative, has anything to do with the fact you’ve been so charged (with sexual harassment)? And if so, do you have any evidence to support that?”

Herman Cain: “I believe the answer is yes, but we do not have any evidence to support it.”

Playing the race card is vulgar, whether done by Al Sharpton or President Barack Obama — as he did to contain the Rev. Wright scandal. Especially when, as here, the complainant admits he lacks evidence. If Cain were not a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination — a shock probably even to him — the media wouldn’t bother. But when the quest goes from curiosity to conceivable, the scrutiny increases exponentially. And who knows how the media got the information, possibly from one of Cain’s presumably non-racist GOP rivals.

Cain can — and should — complain about the media’s hypocritical double-standard, however. There is a real-world, apples-to-apples comparison to examine whether, as a conservative, Cain is being subjected to harsher treatment: the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

During the heat of the 1988 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, rumors surfaced of Jackson’s alleged numerous and rampant instances of infidelity. He was, for a while, his party’s front-runner.

Democratic Underground, a left-wing website, recalls, “(After) Jackson won 55 percent of the vote in the Michigan Democratic caucus, he was considered the front-runner for the nomination, as he surpassed all the other candidates in total number of pledged delegates.”

Unlike Cain, Jackson actually won several primaries and caucuses — and finished second in pledged delegates, beating out rivals such as future Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden.

To blunt whispers of Jackson infidelity, his wife, Jackie, warned Life magazine: “I don’t believe in examining sheets. That’s a violation of privacy. If my husband has committed adultery, he better not tell me. And you better not go digging into it because I’m trying to raise a family and won’t let you be the one to destroy my family.”

Whether the media feared being accused of racism or whether it feared Jackie, there were no “establishment media” stories on Jackson’s alleged sexcapades. That is, until years later, when Jackson admitted fathering a child with a staffer to whom he paid money for a house and who received monthly payments.

Black conservatives — along with white male Christian conservatives and child molesters — remain one of the few groups to which the usual rules of civility and restraint do not apply.

Consider these recent comments about Cain:

“(Cain) really doesn’t want to be overtly associated with African-Americans.” — MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on Cain’s failure to appear at the Martin Luther King Memorial dedication.

“I think that (Cain) makes that white Republican base of the party feel OK, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy. I think he is giving that base a free pass, and I think they like him because they think he is a black man who knows his place. And I know that sounds harsh.” — MSNBC Democratic strategist Karen Finney.

“(Cain) needs to get off the symbolic crack pipe and acknowledge that the evidence (of racism in America) is overwhelming.” — Princeton professor Cornel West.

“Don’t touch me!” the man in the wheelchair shouted to stop me from placing my hand on what used to be his left arm.

“I’m sorry — I was just — ”

“I know what you were doing,” he said calmly. “You were showing me you care. I get it. But you have no idea how much pain I’m in. Don’t feel bad. People are always touching me — and because my left arm is gone and most people are right-handed, well … Doctors, believe it or not, are the worst — always touching me there. You’d think they of all people would know better. But they don’t.” He laughed.

A few minutes earlier, I walked into this pharmacy to fill a prescription, annoyed at having to go. But my dentist said I had a gum infection and that I needed an antibacterial mouthwash. Damn, I thought, of all the things I needed to do today, now this.

The place was small, and this wheelchair-bound double amputee sat parked in front of a row of empty chairs. I decided to stand rather than navigate my way through the narrow space between the chairs, some people sitting near me and the guy in the wheelchair.

“Sir,” he said, motioning with his head to an empty seat, “You can sit here.”

In yet another addition to the growing list of brain-dead, things-I-wish-I-could-take-back-but-somehow-managed-to-escape-my-mouth, I responded half-truthfully: “No, thanks. I’ve been sitting all day.”

Jeez!

Did I just say to a guy sitting in a wheelchair that I’d rather stand because “I’ve been sitting all day?” Yes, I did. Now what? Well, at that point, I said to myself, I’m all in. I doubled down.

“But,” I added, “I suppose you’ve been sitting all day, too — so I think I will.”

To my great relief, he laughed — a real, down-home, full-throated laugh. The pharmacist watching the exchange laughed, too, as did the handful of customers waiting to have their prescriptions filled.

I sat down, and the man — whose name, I learned, was Michael — and I started talking.

“Did you have an accident?” I carefully asked.

The story was beyond tragic. Sixteen years earlier, he was riding his motorcycle when “an old lady fell asleep” and ran head-on into him. He lost his right leg and his left arm. More than a dozen surgeries later, he remains in constant pain. He was sucking on something that resembled a Tootsie Pop.

“It slowly releases a medication that gives me enough relief to handle the pain.”

He sued the old lady.

But she had neither insurance nor assets, and there was nothing to recover.

“Do you have health insurance?” I asked the 40-something-year-old bearded man.

He did, but his deductible left him owing $3.5 million — and counting.

“Do you have $3.5 million?” I asked.

“Does it look like it?” he laughed.

The Occupy Wall Street folks tell us to blame Wall Street for the nation’s financial troubles. Notice the no-fly zone over President Barack Obama. Where are the anti-President Barack Obama signs or the verbal chants denouncing the President? Imagine the protests/sit-ins/rallies/mass marches on Pennsylvania Avenue — not Wall Street — if after two years of Republican White House leadership, America remained stuck on over 9 percent unemployment!

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Barack Obama say they sympathize with the protestors. Of course, they do. After over two years of reckless spending, the inflationary printing of money, massive “stimulus” that failed to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, green technology “investments” in soon-to-be-bankrupt companies whose investors donated to and raised money for the President’s election and unpopular bailouts, the dismal results are in.

What to do?

Find a scapegoat — provided it isn’t Freddie, Fannie or the Community Reinvestment Act, the real culprits behind the housing meltdown. No, Wall Street will do nicely. Just keep Obama’s name off the list of grievances:

“Greedy” investment bankers? Obama’s second chief of staff, William Daley, previously worked as Midwest chairman for JPMorgan Chase. Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, worked as an investment banker and pulled down $18 million in two-and-a-half years.

Bailouts? President Bush bailed out financial institutions, and Obama raised the ante, bailing out more companies, including GM and Chrysler.

Federal reserve? Obama reappointed Fed Chair Ben Bernanke.

Most Americans aren’t buying the blame Wall Street nonsense.

One in three likely voters, according to The Hill, blame Wall Street, while 56 percent blame Washington. A USA Today/Gallup poll of all Americans found that 30 percent blame big financial institutions, with 64 percent pointing the finger at Washington. Thirty percent is still a frighteningly big number for such irresponsible scapegoating.

Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s $500-million-net-worth widow, offered her support: “I love ‘Occupy Wall Street’! John is sending his smile to ‘Occupy Wall Street.’ I am sending my love to ‘Occupy Wall Street.’ We are all working together. You are letting the world know that American activists are doing this. That gives them inspiration and encouragement. That is very important now for the United States and the world.

As John said: ‘One hero cannot do it. Each one of us have to be heroes.’ And you are. Thank you. …”

“The way I think about it is, you know, this is, uh, you know, a great, uh, great country that had gotten a little soft, and you know, we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last, uh, couple of decades. We need to get back on track.” — President Barack Obama.

The gall is breathtaking, even from a man who as a presidential candidate said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

This from a President who, in chastising the rich, said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

This from a man who, during the brief time he actually worked in the private sector, represented a black woman who accused a bank of redlining her out of a loan. The proximate cause of the housing bubble and meltdown is the notion that the “underrepresented” deserve a home, whether or not they qualified under traditional lending criteria.

This from a man who told a Toledo plumber that government should “spread the wealth around” by taxing “the rich” and giving the money to others, because “it’s good for everybody.”

This from a man who blasts any suggestion that young people just might be capable of investing a portion of their Social Security contribution into an account that they manage. Former Congresswoman and vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, in opposing the idea, fretted for those who lack “the knowledge and the wherewithal” to handle the responsibility.

This from a flip-flopper who initially opposed the 1996 welfare reform — legislation that resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the welfare rolls, and without a corresponding increase in teen pregnancy. Then-state Sen. Obama called President Bill Clinton’s support of the federal bill “disturbing,” and a year later — on the Illinois state Senate floor — he said, “I probably would not have supported the federal legislation.” A decade later, when presidential candidate Obama was asked if he would have signed or vetoed the ’96 reform bill, he repeatedly dodged the question, insisting that he looked to the next 10 years, not the past 10 years. Then his campaign began running ads touting the reduction of welfare cases made possible by the 1996 reforms.

This from a man who blames corporations for “shipping jobs overseas,” yet shows no concern for the high corporate tax rates — rates that would be unnecessary were the federal government to actually stick to the handful of duties permitted by the Constitution.

This from a man who thinks it’s the government’s job to “invest” in “green jobs of the future” because the private sector cannot be trusted to take risks.

To the extent America has gotten “soft,” Obama can’t mean working hours.

The average American works longer hours than other people in the industrialized world, including the Japanese, the Germans and the British.

Nor does Obama, by “soft,” mean the growing and unsustainable reliance on government. In 1900, government, at all three levels — federal, state and local — took about 10 percent of the American workers’ pay. Today, if one assigns a price to unfunded federal mandates imposed on the states, government’s take approaches 50 percent. Obama and his party encourage government growth and expect Americans to depend on it for health, welfare and retirement. These are, they tell us, “human rights.”

So, let’s recap the President’s playbook.

Why did the Obama administration, after dragging out the various court challenges to ObamaCare, suddenly step on the gas?

The administration surprised court watchers by passing up a chance to slow down ObamaCare’s long march to an eventual Supreme Court ruling. In failing to request a hearing by all the appeals court judges of the 11th Circuit — to overturn an anti-ObamaCare decision by three of its members — the administration now puts the matter on a faster track to the Supreme Court.

The court will likely agree to hear the case because two appellate circuit courts, the 11th and 6th, have issued contradictory rulings — one striking down the individual mandate as unconstitutional, and the other upholding it. This confusion practically guarantees a hearing by the top court, probably months before next year’s election.

What provoked the administration’s change of heart?

Obama supposedly did not want a Supreme Court decision so soon because, pro or con, the ruling figures to play large as a re-election issue. On the other hand, ObamaCare already is an issue, with the President’s opponent undoubtedly planning to hammer him with it.

But if the court strikes down ObamaCare — especially with a 5-4 split — Obama can argue that with his re-election, the next opening gets filled with another Sotomayor/Kagan-like liberal who would have supported ObamaCare. If the vacancy comes from the conservative side, Obama can fulfill a liberal dream of switching the court’s majority from center-right — four conservatives and the Anthony Kennedy “swing” vote — to a left-wing majority.

Obama’s new faster-track tactic might also turn on this: Obama expects the Supreme Court to side with him. If the President wins in court, his Republican opponent will still argue against the merits of ObamaCare. But he or she could no longer flatly call it “unconstitutional,” since the court would have just ruled otherwise.

So how would a Supreme Court defeat make Obama lucky in his bid for a second term?

ObamaCare remains unpopular, with a plurality of Americans wanting it repealed. Unlike major historic safety-net legislation like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, ObamaCare received no opposition party Senate votes — none. A majority of state attorneys general either filed or joined lawsuits to overturn the mandate that requires practically all Americans to purchase health insurance.

Romneycare, used as a model for ObamaCare, at best fails to live up to its promises. True, most residents of Massachusetts support Romneycare, and Gov. Mitt Romney’s successor praises it.

An AP “fact-check” on Romneycare, relying on an MIT economist who helped design Romneycare, pretty much pronounced it a success. But the free-market think tank National Center for Policy Analysis sees the Massachusetts health plan differently. Among its findings:

Two and a half years into the Obama presidency, why does the economy still sputter?

The first and most popular line of defense, of course, remains to blame it on the George W. Bush administration.

Pundits like CNN’s Fareed Zakaria falsely attribute the current $1.5 trillion deficit to the “Bush tax cuts,” while Obama puts the “cost” at $70 billion a year. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz asserts that “98 percent of you” were not affected by the cuts, an odd argument considering that Obama supports extending the Bush-era rates for the very 98 percent that Schultz claims received no benefit.

Others blame the “costly” wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the average annual cost of the wars — as well as the “cost” of the Bush tax cuts for the rich — come to no more than 20 percent or so of the deficit.

When considering the “cost” of the Iraq War, critics never compare it to the “cost” of another 9/11 or worse. The New York Times recently tried to put a price on 9/11 and our response: “In a survey of estimates by The New York Times, the answer is $3.3 trillion, or about $7 million for every dollar al-Qaida spent planning and executing the attacks. While not all of the costs have been borne by the government — and some are still to come — this total equals one-fifth of the current national debt.”

Did Iraq play a major role in the lack — so far — of another successful attack on U.S. soil? Ask al-Qaida.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new al-Qaida leader after the killing of bin Laden, both called Iraq the “front line” in the battle against the infidels. Bin Laden, in 2004, made this quite clear: “The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. … The world’s millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate. … The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries; the Islamic nation, on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.”

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander in charge of the Iraq invasion, said: “The Global War on Terrorism will be a long fight. But make no mistake, we are going to fight the terrorists. The question is do we fight them over there — or do we fight them here. I choose to fight them over there.”

Another excuse is that the “Great Recession” was a financial recession and, therefore, lasts longer than the non-financial type.

No one said anything abut a “financial recession” when Obama’s economic advisors pushed the “stimulus” as a means to prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent, while predicting that 3.5 million jobs would be “saved or created,” with 90 percent of these jobs coming from the private sector.

Sept. 11 unified America. But President George W. Bush “squandered” this shared sense of purpose.

We still hear this drivel, mostly from the left, 10 years after the terror attacks. But how did Bush blow this alleged consensus, this shared sense of purpose presumably expected to last, well, forever?

Bush’s critics pretty much give the same three reasons.

First, “America was ready to sacrifice,” they say, but Bush made no demands. “Go shopping,” Bush urged Americans, a comment that somehow came to symbolize Bush’s alleged wrong-footedness as commander in chief. He blew it! Why, he should have convened a joint session of Congress, asked for network airtime, stared sternly at his teleprompter and barked: “All you American men and women between the ages of 18 and 45, hit the floor and gimme 25 push-ups. I got all your names. I got your addresses! So move those fannies, America!”

Bush wanted the 9/11 Islamofascists to understand that they did not and would not succeed in decapitating the country by attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and our seats of government. His message to the terrorists: Americans do not cower behind closed doors and would not be intimidated. And we intend to take the fight to you.

Second, Bush “divided America” in how he chose to fight the war on terror. Well, yes, figuring out exactly how to fight this war did, indeed, cause a rift or two. Imagine that. Yet the now controversial and much-criticized decision to invade Iraq received broad public support. At the beginning of the Iraq War, over 70 percent of Americans supported it. Seventy-seven members of the Senate voted for the Iraq war resolution. This included several Democrats who ran for president in 2008: Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton — all of whom later renounced their vote and blamed it on everything from “having been misled” to bad sushi.

Biden even co-wrote a pre-invasion op-ed piece explaining his support for the war. He warned that while toppling Saddam Hussein would be easy, it would then take about 10 years to stabilize Iraq. Then, the war, pre-surge, went south. Things turned bleak. Biden pivoted. He suggested a dividing of Iraq into three parts. Then he pivoted again. Alas, he admitted, he erred in voting for the war. Now vice president, Biden pivoted again, calling Iraq, in February 2010, “one of the great achievements of this administration.” Don’t ask. Just Joe being Joe.

The New York Times editorialized, on March 20, 2003, against the Iraq War.

But the paper said it respected the administration’s position and wanted success. Even pathological anti-Bush critic Bill Maher, who disagreed with the invasion, seemed almost impressed by Bush’s vision in deciding to invade Iraq.

The tea party, according to Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, would “love to see us as second-class citizens” … and “some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.” Of the tea party’s influence on Congress, Carson called it an “effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow.” Another CBC member, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said, “The tea party can go straight to hell.”

This was too much for Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., the only Republican member of the CBC. Another black Republican, Tim Scott, R-S.C., pointedly declined to even join the CBC. Given the hard-left views of the CBC, one wonders why West joined in the first place. West, presumably, thought he might change the CBC’s “blame whitey” approach to the problems and concerns of black Americans.

West wrote a letter to the chairman of the CBC, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., to denounce the comments by Carson and Waters: “I believe it is incumbent on you to both condemn these types of hate-filled comments, and to disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus from these types of remarks. Otherwise I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization.”

Insert laughter.

Does West really think the CBC intends to condemn racial rhetoric, the very rhetoric CBC members routinely use? Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., a founding member of the CBC, said of the 1994 GOP House: “It’s not ‘spic’ and ‘nigger’ anymore. They say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.’” Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., another founding member, was once asked why a largely Arab area outside of Detroit flourished economically, while a mostly black area nearby continued to suffer. “Racism,” said Conyers.

Does West really think the CBC cares whether West wants to “seriously reconsider” his CBC membership? In the ’90s, another black Republican, Rep. Gary Franks, R-Conn., joined the CBC over the objection of other CBC members. Because of Franks’ opposition to race-based preferences, CBC member Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., said, “It would probably be better for all concerned if you did resign … admitting you never should have joined the ranks of black legislators who fight to protect the rights of black people.”

West represents a direct threat to the CBC’s worldview — that the problems of “Black America” stem from racism, and more government spending remains the answer.

How racist is a country that elected a black man as president with a greater share of the white vote than either John Kerry in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000?

The Irish cabdriver complained almost nonstop during our half-hour drive to the Belfast International Airport. He especially worried about the job prospects for his 20-something son and, for that matter, about those for the generation of young people who face a “sh-tty” future on this beautiful island full of friendly people.

“Give me,” I finally said, “the No. 1 reason for the economic problems here.”

He looked almost stunned.

“Huh…” he said, “let me think.”

We drove silently for nearly a half-mile. Then he turned to me and said, “Too many takers — not enough givers.”

Little by little, inch by inch, drop by drop, governments both in America and in Europe began taking more and more from people, diminishing the incentive of those on both sides of the transaction — the taker and the giver. In America, nearly half of wage earners pay not one single dime in federal income taxes. Many of them trudge down to the local polling place or vote via absentee ballot — and vote themselves a raise.

The Founding Fathers conceived a brilliant document to restrain the federal government and allow maximum freedom for the people to make their own way. It leaves people the power to make their own decisions and to deal with the consequences. Almost before the ink dried, Congress tried to circumvent the Constitution.

James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and the “Father of the Constitution,” warned against using the document — especially the “general welfare” clause — to dispense money, no matter how well-intended or deserved: “With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, an appalled Madison wrote, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

“Too many takers — not enough givers.”

Hollywood left-wingers understand the corrosive effect of burdensome government on their own industry. Those working in Hollywood long complained about “runaway” productions, where other states and countries lured television and movie productions away from California by offering tax incentives and less restrictive union rules.

What did Hollywood do about this?

The industry lobbied state and city lawmakers to lower the tax and regulatory burden on production companies in order to keep the work local.

Just when you thought the disgruntled-about-Obama lefties gave up on the “let’s replace Obama with Hillary” nonsense, it’s back like “Rocky VI.” Maybe even in 3-D.

Check out this recent newspaper subhead: “President Barack Obama is facing mounting doubts within his own party about his re-election prospects, with fellow Democrats beginning to ask if Hillary Clinton would have made a better president.”

Well, with favorability numbers in the low 40s and 73 percent of Americans believing America is on the “wrong track,” doubts do tend to sort of creep in. But Hillary?!

If you’re a lefty, sure there’s stuff to grumble about. But would the equally left-wing Hillary Clinton, likewise backed by supportive Democratic supermajorities in the House and Senate, have governed differently? Please.

On what political basis — from the left’s perspective — would Hillary have done a better job in pushing the leftist agenda? During the ’08 primaries, what were the differences between Obama and her? She wanted a health care “mandate.” He did not. Then he did. OK.

In the eyes of the H2L2 (the hard-hard left-left — not to be confused with an Obama-like regular old hard left), Obama “caved” to the tea party-led Republicans on the debt deal. The deal included no tax hikes, and “millionaires and billionaires” kept their “corporate jet” loopholes! Egads!

Now, most lefties still love Obama — until and unless, to quote a former governor of Louisiana, he gets “caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” The left loves “stimulus,” new and proposed taxes on the rich (and many non-rich, too), the redistribution of wealth from unworthy rich to far nobler “working men and women,” and rhetoric against Wall Street greed (on which Obama blames the housing crisis).

Lefties applaud the Justice Department lawsuits against the states of Arizona and Alabama over their immigration laws. And the two new female left-wing Supreme Court justices, one a Latina, please the left greatly.

Sure, Obama failed to close Gitmo, but then so did former President George W. Bush. So, gee, it might be harder than the left thought. Give him a mulligan on that one. As for Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama shed the gung-ho image of that warmonger George W. Bush and now undertakes a gradual withdrawal that is condition-based, except on a time certain. Sure, he’s involved in three wars, with an incomprehensible involvement in Libya. But then we can always blame Bush … well, except for the Libyan thing, but whatever.

They adore ObamaCare, an achievement worthy of chiseling Obama’s face on Mount Rushmore — or at least giving him a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

So, who “won” the debt ceiling standoff? President Barack Obama — for two reasons.

First, the tea party-influenced GOP stopped his job-killing bucket list: higher taxes, more “stimulus,” union card check, and cap and trade, among the items. Whatever the economy does going forward, it will be better than had Obama and the Dems not been whacked. The policies of the last two-and-a-half years — ObamaCare, “stimulus,” bailouts, regulation, “green technology investments,” “quantitative easing” (or as normal people would say, printing money), taxing and threatening to raise taxes further — have failed. The debt-ceiling debate — plus the new Republican majority in the House and the Democrats’ loss of their Senate supermajority — changes the game for the rest of his presidency.

Even as the President’s policies harm the economy, there is an absolute boom in manufacturing excuses for the dismal results. One member of the administration’s economic team blamed the debt ceiling debate: “(The problem) is the cloud of uncertainty that comes from the American public thinking that we are on the verge of default. And that has hurt confidence and hurt our economy over the last few months. No question.” Well, yeah, except the weak economic numbers long preceded the debt ceiling debate.

The hysterical left says that only the tea party won. The “cuts” were not offset by “new revenue”! “Millionaires and billionaires” kept their current tax rates! The “corporate loopholes” for “oil companies” and “corporate jet owners” remain! The tea party-led GOP acted “like terrorists” who “held America hostage”! This “small band” of “extremists” and “hard-liners” managed to “impose their will on the rest of America” and fed us, according to one particularly unhappy Democratic congressman, a “Satan sandwich”!

Such B.M.W. over a potential slowdown — not even a reversal — of government spending! Under the deal, the real mechanism for controlling spending — a balanced budget amendment — is only promised a future vote. The spending continues. The debt grows bigger. Whether under the John Boehner, Harry Reid or cut/cap/balance plans — or the imaginary, unwritten “Obama plan” — spending continues to grow. Under the recently passed “cuts,” the national debt, currently at $14 trillion, could still double over the next 10 years — absent major surgery.

Second, Obama won this way. The drama put the bad gross domestic product numbers on the back page.