At the New Orleans convention, David Duke must have had it in for me, because he put my speech right after that of John Tyndal, head of the British National Party.

John Tyndal gave a rip-roaring speech that brought the crowd to its feet.

Then I had to follow him.

Gee, thanks, David. Did I forget to pay my share for the drinks in Moscow or what?

I began my speech with a left-handed tribute to David Duke and John Tyndal and other speakers. I pointed out that the podium had been full of speakers who had been innocent but bravely gone to prison for their beliefs.

I then pointed out that I had been in politics all my life and on Capitol Hill and in the Administration, and I deserved the chair for it. But, I reminded them, I hadn’t even been arrested yet.

But Tyndal made a point that made it crystal clear to me WHY I had avoided that kind of martyrdom for our cause. It was a complete revelation to me about my whole political life.

John Tyndal has been to prison twice. He has been beaten repeatedly. Those Brave Heroes of the Left even beat up his WIFE, too!

Tyndal referred to David Duke’s first election to the Louisiana state legislature. He said too many of us talk about Congress or the Senate and we turn up our noses at those “trvial” little electoral offices. Then he told us a story.

In one town, the British National Party was treated like dogs, and John Tyndal knows up front and personal what that feels like. But the next year they were treated like princes. Why? Because they had elected a member of the town council in the meantime.

Tyndal kept saying, “A LITTLE power, just a LITTLE power, transforms the entire situation.”

It hit me then. The reason I had avoided the staggering costs that David Duke and Tyndal and others had paid was because I had always had a LITTLE power!

When I got the highest security clearance you can get in the United States Government — I would be at the top of security clearances myself — my Adjudicator was the top lawyer in the entire government in charge of civil service clearances. He had every bit of information there was about me, all stacked up in a pile of notebooks behind him.

He’s Jewish, but anyone would have asked me this question:

“Are you anti-Semitic?”

I replied, “Yes.” I then went on to explain that every Jew who said “I am am Jewish and…” always followed that “and” with a vicious remarks about the white race, the South or both, and I appreciated that as much as any Jew would who heard endless numbers of gentiles say, “Well, I am a gentile so I have a right to hate Jews.”

That subject ended right there and I got my clearance.

If I had said anything but “Yes” I would have been in deep trouble, since everything about me was sitting right there behind my Adjudicator.

If I not been appointed by President Reagan to the job I was being cleared for, if I had not been on Capitol Hill working as a staffer for the ranking Republican member of the House Select Intelligence Committee, I would probably have been toast.

But I had a LITTLE power. Big as the above titles sound, the fact is that I was just one of thousands of Reagan appointees. I was just one of thousands of Capitol Hill staffers.

A LITTLE power.

If I had a been regular joe, I could have been turned down for saying “Yes” about anti-Semitism. But I had a LITTLE power. Turning me down would have caused waves. I would have been able to explain my “anti-Semitism” in an appeal, and it would have made my Adjudicator look like the bigot.

I have played on the knife edge of the little power I had all my life, but I had never thought of it that way.

People say that “being let go” is a euphemism for “being fired” and “he isn’t working out” really means “he’s screwing up.” Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe “being let go” and “not working out” just reflect the new reality of employment.

The group that calls itself “The Greatest Generation” went on endlessly about how hard they had it, but they had it much easier than young people going into the job market today. Back then you got a job and kept it for years and decades, being promoted if you could. You only got fired if you screwed up royally.

Today you get a job for exactly as long as you are useful, then they let you go. There is no job security, so you don’t get “fired” from a job that is your lifelong property, you are “let go” the moment your usefulness ceases, whether you screw up or not.

Today very few people get let go because they screw up. They are let go because they are really “not working out.” When you go in to see your boss he wonders why you are bothering him when you could do the thing yourself. If he has to do it himself he may as well let you go.

It always astonished me when I made the most inexcusable mistakes and the boss took them in stride. I never got fired or let go, and I couldn’t understand it. Now I think I do.

The boss wanted ME to DO things. I screwed up because I DID things, usually on my own or with a quick BRIEF note to him. I seldom saw my bosses.

Making appointments with my boss took time and attention he needed elsewhere, and that was exactly what he hired me to avoid. Naturally when someone takes on that kind of responsibility they will screw it up a lot. Back then one would say in today’s parlance that “Whitaker is working out” because I was doing something for him NOW, not lying there inert until he told me what to do.

The group that calls itself The Greatest Generation got through life by just following orders. We have computers to do that now. Young people now have to show initiative or be let go.

When I was in Africa, the English immigrants explained to me that one of the main staples of the native African diet was called “mealie-meal.”

I gave them my Serious, Lecture Look and said. “Yes, mealie-meal is produced by putting corn kernels into a machine that removes the husk of the corn kernel and puts out the white interior. This white interior is then pulverized to make mealie-meal.”

Each time I said this, they were impressed. One Englishman said, “You’ve really done your homework, haven’t you?”

I managed to keep a straight face.

“Mealie-meal” is grits.