Christine M. Flowers: In their design, so little intelligence

RECENTLY, Richard Aregood wrote in this paper that I believed in intelligent design. With all due respect to the Pulitzer Prize winner, I need to edit that comment.

While I have sympathies for those who want to express an alternative view to the theory of evolution (First Amendment and all,) I find nothing to convince me that an intelligent designer exists.

A few examples:

* Eric Holder: Our esteemed attorney general has decided that it's bad to force voters to provide identification when they show up at polling places (Fraud? What fraud?), but that it's perfectly fine to give guns to drug smugglers at the border with Mexico (Dead border-patrol agents? What dead border-patrol agents?).

* Mumia Abu-Jamal supporters: People who are congenitally incapable of understanding the importance of the word "reasonable" in the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" persist in their misguided and immoral crusade to have a convicted cop-killer released from custody. The guy won't fry. They should just stop while they're ahead.

* The Pa. Liquor Control Board: When the folks on the LCB ran a graphic ad that connected the dots between alcohol abuse, loss of control and rape, they gave a courageous example in how to defy political correctness. Showing the bottom half of an obviously drunken woman who had also, obviously, been violated, was brave. But when they caved to feminist pressure and pulled the ad because victims' advocates were offended, they showed their true colors: every shade of yellow in the rainbow.

* Daryl Metcalfe: The upstanding state representative, married to an immigrant himself, has decided that the Constitution doesn't matter, and birthright citizenship should be abolished. He believes that the children of "illegals" shouldn't be considered citizens simply because their mothers happened to crawl across the border right before their water broke. (Fourteenth Amendment? What Fourteenth Amendment?)

* Joe Biden: So much to choose from here. But I'll stick with one of the more recent gaffes. On a trip to China, our vice president seemed to commiserate with his hosts about overpopulation. Sure, he said, you can understand why the government would want to have a superefficient one-child policy that effectively forces women to abort their second, third and fourth children. He recanted when he heard the cries of outrage in the U.S. But not before Delawareans everywhere hung their heads in shame for having inflicted the man on America.

* Rick Perry: He looks the part of the candidate: perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect posture. But then he opens his mouth and makes Barney Frank look statesmanlike (and sane). It kills me to have to put a religious conservative who worked economic wonders in his home state on the same list with an unrepentant cop killer. But Perry frittered away all the good will engendered by his leadership in Texas. He's an embarrassment to the tribe.

* People who want cameras in the U.S. Supreme Court: These people are the ones who, more than any others, make me doubt the concept of intelligent design. Anyone who has ever spent more than 15 minutes watching Nancy Grace knows the damage caused by televising court proceedings. Lawyers who should be focused on their clients start acting as if Steven Spielberg were in the jury box. Judges who should be worried about the state of the criminal-justice system are more concerned about the state of their hair. Jurors are worried that if they make the wrong decision, they'll end up needing bodyguards. And second-rate newscasters and overly made-up "legal experts" prostitute themselves for ratings bonanzas. It's too late to save the lower courts from this mess. But the highest court in the land deserves to be spared from the gawkers and media stalkers.

* Bill Maher: Ironically, the television host and I are closer than you'd think on intelligent design. He's an atheist and doesn't believe that God exists. I'm a believer and am willing to cut God some slack, but he must have created Maher on the eighth day, when he overslept.

* The Kardashian family: While it would be sufficient to just say "skanks ipsa loquitor" (translation: "The skanks speak for themselves"), these hot messes deserve more than that. The KKK (Katastrophic Kardashian Klan) have done more to destroy the fabric of this country since that other famous family the Mansons. The women look as if their idea of hygiene is to bathe in the Exxon Valdez oil slick, the men (if that's what you could call poor Bruce Jenner) are sadly irrelevant and the whole group is one unibrow away from being genetic throwbacks to a simpler time (try the Mesozoic Era).

So, that's why I'm not so keen on intelligent design. Come to think of it, in a world where Lindsay Lohan is possible, we might want to rethink evolution, too.