THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

Forget the ethnic jokes, this is deadly serious. For generations, the New England "blue bloods" sold America out to the Communists. Then the Old Boys' Network at the top of the secret services would hire more of these "blue bloods" from Harvard.

And gosh darn it, guess what happened? Gee whiz, another New England "blue blood" sold us out again! It is not an accident that Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society which pushed the Communist Conspiracy idea, was from Massachusetts. For him, the high-level Communists were a fact of life.

When I dealt with security matters, we just took it for granted that if you wanted the Reds to know, you let the Old Boys know. We were a bunch of judgmental rednecks, you see. We had a totally out of date line

Commies BAD. We Good. Period.

Notice that when Senator Torricelli arranged it so that all information about questionable spies had to be cleared with the Washington office, not a single case was referred. Everybody knew exactly what would happen to spies about whom the central office knew everything.

If you don't trust the New England Old Boy Network, who do you trust? As a judgmental redneck, you trust OTHER judgmental rednecks. Yes, Virginia, these judgmental rednecks, aka patriots, are exactly the people ethnic stereotypes would tell you they are.

You don't trust all Southerners, but you trust Southerners. You don't trust all Americans with Irish names, but they are an excellent bet. With the same caveat, you trust Mormons, you look for Midwesterners, and you trust your gut.

So when Irish Catholic family man Robert Hansen and a retired army sergeant named Bryan Patrick Reagan are the two latest big-time sellouts, my blood runs cold.

No one else would dare say this, because it is just true. Ands the truth is no excuse. As with everything else, Political Correctness takes precedence over national security.