In another one of those "Imagine if he was a Republican" scenarios, a Democratic Georgia legislator's wife, who appears to be an illegal alien, has gone into hiding to avoid federal agents who are trying to deport her [see article ]. Now the story goes into all sorts of detail about exactly what happened, and even seeks to blame some "unsavory" notary public for the mess, but to me, that is all besides the point. While I can identify with someone seeking to protect his wife, and can almost find it admirable, the point is the guy is a state legislator who most likely swore to uphold the laws of the US, which he is now flaunting. He also has a history of support for "immigrant rights" ,  which I read to mean illegal aliens, and a large proportion of his constituents are foreign. Additionally when he married this woman she was already under a deportation order, though he claims he was assured by officials that she was in the country legally.

The whole thing sounds strange to me, and I just wonder what would be happening if this guy was a Republican. Somehow I think the outcry would be a little louder, and I would be willing to bet he would be chased from office. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen here.

In the same vein, I was reading  about the Memorial services for Gerry Studds yesterday which noted  about the packed affair:  

"Friends of the nation's first openly gay congressman remembered him Saturday as a man who went to Washington to end the Vietnam War and protect the environment, then became a champion of gay rights. "

A little further along this Liberal hero's little sexual affair with a 17 year old page is mentioned in passing, as is Barney Frank's paean to this icon of homosexuality. It is all very touching, and I almost got a little misty eyed in thinking about how this Gay version of Rosa Parks valiantly defended his cause by engaging in sex with a kid. Granted , its not exactly standing toe to toe with the National Guard, or defying discriminatory laws with the attendant risks of bodily injury, but everyone does what he can. For Studds, that was sodomy with a teenager.  A true act of courage!

Hard to believe that many of the people paying homage to Studds  were, just a few months ago, incensed by Mark Foley's emails. I guess in the hierachy of admirable efforts for the cause, emails just don't rank, at least not if they are from a Republican, who did lose his job.

Sometimes I imagine how nice it would be if Republicans could be held to the same lowered [nonexistent?] expectations that Democrats are. But I realize someone has to be a responsible adult  while the Peter Pan Liberals are in Never-never land.

If you are as tired as I am of the MSM reporting on Iraq with its constant drumbeat of bad news, here is an interview with an embedded reporter that presents a whole other prospective. While certainly not painting a picture of a pacified country, his observations on the progress being made are insightful and realistic, and definitely worth reading. Unlike Matt Lauer, who is now the expert on when Civil War is reached, this reporter performs his job admirably by conveying facts, and as we all suspected, when that happens Iraq is seen in a completely different light.

A system the government uses to screen for possible terrorists has, surprise,  resulted in the usual furor of concern and fear that we have come to expect from the Liberal establishment. As outlined, the Automated Targeting System [ATS] does not racial profile [thank God, I wouldn't want to target young arab males] but instead looks at certain factors for EVERYONE who travels, and uses that to decide if further inspections or investigation is needed when the person is trying to board a plane or enter the country. The only thing surprising about the story for me was that it wasn't the headline of the NY Times [at least not yet- they must be slipping in their attempts to undermine national securi..., er , I mean keep their readers informed of all the News They See Fit to Print].  The arguments put forth against the program mainly pertain to its intrusiveness [whatever that means in  today's world] and the inability for someone to see their own report [gee, I wonder why we wouldn't want to show a Terrorist what we know about him, or how we got it?], all wonderfully valid if we were talking about a law enforcement situation where "you are innocent until proven guilty", but so misguided and indeed dangerous when we are dealing with people who will only become guilty after they commit mass murder . When will the Left realize that in a war you cannot wait for "probable cause" or  "evidence of guilt" because that means that hundreds, maybe thousands of people have been killed. I for one applaud ATS and hope there are more such programs out there. And for the record, if we are not doing some kind of racial profiling, we are fools.

The recent shooting in NYC of a black man has evoked the usual outcries, but none have been more strident and threatening than that of Charles Barron, who is profiled in an article  on Discoverthenetworks.org.  A former Black Panther and a black nationalist, among the highlights of his career is the removal of George Washington's picture from a government office because "he was a slave owner", and he has called Jefferson a "slaveowning pedophile". You should read the piece to get a good feel for some of the extremists who have turned the Democratic party into what it is today - bizarre!

In regard to this particular incident, Barron is out in full force decrying  the killing of a black man [who rode his car into a police officer who was trying to get him to stop according to reports I have seen] and threatening that his black constituents have had enough and implying violence was imminent. In the past he has disparaged the white power structure and announced their time has basically passed. Being an ex-New Yorker, I have heard it all before, though I admit this guy seems a little over the top.

However, what I find interesting is that the officers doing the shootings were two blacks and one hispanic, not exactly what I would call the "white power structure". But maybe in Barron's eyes, once you become a cop you become white, similar to the arguments I have seen made that Black Republicans are not really black.  Who says Liberals close their eyes to reality?

 I have to note that I was watching O'Reilly talk to Al Sharpton about this issue, and even old Al was smart enough to downplay the racial angle and instead emphasize "police brutality' regardless of the color of the officers. After reading about Barron, Sharpton almost looks moderate. Maybe that's the plan, sort of like the recent articles I have seen saying that Pelosi is a moderate compared to some of her constituents.  I guess Dems can never be taken at face value, but only in comparison to even more radical leftists. Perhaps  Howard Dean secretly  came up with the strategy "It could always be worse!".

What I think makes this whole affair interesting is the very fact that Barron is cynically fanning the flames of racism where there is no indication that bigotry was a factor, and that is shameful.  But  more importantly, it is also indicative of the strategy of many black leaders who fear the demise of racism and the concomitant victim mentality it causes , because they know that  once they lose that bogeyman, they will finally have to lead in a substantive way , instead of just yelling "racism" and encouraging mob justice.  As Juan Williams, John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and many others have acknowledged, the time of victimhood is over, and now the Black community needs real leaders at their forefront to help them truly engage American Society and benefit from all it offers.  However, people like Barron show that the present, so-called leaders are not going to go quietly into the night. Until they do, their poor followers are fated to second class status as they are led by third class demagogues.

The Supreme Court is hearing a case brought by some states, cities and environmental organizations which want the EPA to be more assertive in controlling carbon dioxide, the main culprit of the global warming scare, while the Administration has taken the stance that they are powerless to do so.  I am not going to get into the merits of this case, but I was struck by a comment made by one of the plaintiffs lawyers which I think is worth mulling over. To quote the article from US News and World Report:

Natural Resources Defense Counsel lawyer David Doniger pointed to the contrast between the Bush administration's stance in this case with its recent journeys to court in cases involving detention of prisoners and the war on terror.

"The administration's been very muscular in asserting its authority–they act like Supermen," says Doniger. "But when it comes to global warming, they act like 98-pound weaklings."

Now I may be overly touchy about this, but to compare the urgency and national interests of a war being fought against madmen set on killing us to that of a scientific theory which is still being disputed in the scientific community is indicative of the mindset of the Liberal establishment in regard to what we are really facing. Try as they might to convince us that they understand the threat to our existence that is out there, when push comes to shove we see what they really think. Does anyone really believe that if in 1942  global warming was suspected that anyone in his right mind would have argued that equal efforts should have been used to correct it as was being used against Nazi Germany? To sound upset that the government is not pursuing comparable powers to fight global warming as it is for our national defense against an authoritarian ideology which has struck us repeatedly is indicative of the fact that THE LEFT HAS NO CLUE. And anyone who is going to claim that this was just the comment of one lawyer is living in a fantasyland where the President of Iran really is concerned for our well being and just wants to be our pen pal. Much as the Iranians  clearly telegraph their intentions if we only listen to what they say, so do the Left in this country if we only listen. And the message is they want nice weather with moderate temperatures while the Islamists are killing us.

It is said that no cause is ever lost because no cause is ever really won [T.S.Elliot?], and recent events have brought that home forcefully.  The most obvious is the resurgence of Islam, a faith written off after WWI and the secularization of the former Ottoman Empire as relegated to the dustbin of history. Today I looked at the news and saw Al Quaeda in Iraq protesting "the Crusades" as if almost 1000 years hadn't passed since Pope Urban initially used that term.  And for those who want some variety in their enemies, Russia and Putin are slowly establishing a stranglehold over European energy sources, giving them more leverage than they ever possessed during the Cold War which ended less that twenty years ago. Speaking of Russia, if we look to our South we see the reemergence of Marxism, perhaps the most reviled and historically bankrupt of all the ideologies that have taken hold of men's minds. Even our old enemy in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is back, reelected decades after having been written off as history.  And from a less adversarial perspective, Judaism, perhaps the most prosecuted and oppressed of all belief systems in history, continues to exist, and is even right at the center of world events as Israel seems to be at the geographical  center of  the world's struggles. And less we think we are unique, proof that new, advanced ideas do gain hold in the world, let us not forget that Democracy began more than 3000 years ago in Greece, and that the Romans had the first group of aristocratic elites called a Senate.  Does anything ever change? Is progress an illusion to comfort us as we engage in battles fought for hundreds or thousands of years? Or we all Sisyphus, pushing that stone up a hill only to have it keep falling back down, never making headway ?

An existential secularist [read Liberal here] would probably point to material improvement, and that is undeniable, the result of Capitalism, a system that echoes some economies of the past  but which incorporates the added boost given by technology and energy which magnifies and multiplies the generation of wealth and the improvement of living standards.  So yes, from that perspective life is improving, just as it is also deteriorating due to the pollution, alienation and other drawbacks which attend the modern industrial economy. But I am an optimist by nature, so I will credit this a net gain.

But it is obviously not enough as the upheaval in the world demonstrates. Now it can be argued that most of the problems are due to wealth inequality, and if that can be remedied all will be peace and goodwill. Sorry, I ascribe to Jesus' words that the poor will always be with us. After all, if you compare today's poor to  the medieval poor you'd be hardpressed to say most are not much better off  [for instance, in the US, many of those in poverty probably live better than the aristocrats of the 1200's], but the problem seems to be relative wealth, and here, unless you are a Liberal who still believes in fairy tales, human nature ensures that there will always be "wealthy' and "non-wealthy" people. If this is the cause of the strife we face, than we are indeed doomed to battle for all eternity.

But I don't think that is the real problem, and I base this on my own experiences. I know many very wealthy people who are unhappy and "searching", susceptible to all sorts of marginal or fringe belief systems [did I hear someone say "Scientology"?].  Material wealth is nice, maybe more than nice, but it doesn't fill a person's soul, and therein lies the problem. Try as Liberals might, people realize they have "souls" even if they don't call it that, and that is what reawakens or keeps alive ideologies and faiths long thought dead. Marx thought he had the answer to this thirst, and Lenin thought he was realizing it, but instead they only proved the point that a strictly secular, materialistic system will never fulfill us.  And yet  believing in God doesn't reallyseem to solve anything, as we apply all our competitiveness and ambition to the realm of faith and split into competing "teams".And so we keep looking, and fighting and despairing.

I would like to be able to offer here comforting words of wisdom which would show us the way off this treadmill, but I do not have any. What I do know is that , even while we are fighting for what we believe is good and right,  we must never stop appreciating life and all God had given us. I remember a story about Warren Zevon, the songwriter who , when he was dying from an untreatable cancer, was asked what he would miss most. His answer was a "good ham sandwich", and for me that resonated. Yes, we may very well find ourselves in a world war with Islam, but even as we engage in it, we must cherish our family, our talents, our opportunities, all those instances of charity and decency which surround us if we only open our eyes, and yes, even a good sandwich. Maybe we are fated to fight the same fight against the same enemies over and over, but that doesn't mean we cannot change and become more appreciative, decent people at the same time. Maybe life is all about trying to do  things that make God proud, even as we are experiencing a "Ground Hog's Day" type of deja vu in confronting the challenges the world presents. Maybe that is the only real progress.

  We live in interesting times, something the Chinese recognize as a curse, and everyday seems to bring an upheaval or reorientation to things we thought set in stone. Recently, that most sacred of all our American rights, free speech, has come under attack from both the left and right.  While bipartisanship is a much wished for commodity in our riven times, in this case it  demonstrates that even when sharing a common concept, Liberals and Conservatives are worlds apart.

From the right, Newt Gingrich is advocating  the limiting of speech as a weapon to hinder terrorists in their recruiting and planning of attacks on American soil. While admirable aspirations,  the slippery slope of what  he proposes is more like a cliff which drops hundreds of feet.  We all would like to stop the terrorists, and the thought that they are out there planning massive destruction on our country causes all kind of thoughts to arise which reflect our desperation to just do something to stop them, but if you take a step back and consider most of them reasonably, you  realize that they are useless or worse, an infringement, indeed a corruption, of what makes us special. To attempt to restrict the ability of madmen to recruit or plan, especially using the Internet,  by limiting speech would entail restrictions that could not but expand beyond anything originally envisioned, and if ever the law of  unintended consequences should cause us to stop journeying down a certain path, the this is that time. Mr. Speaker your goals are admirable and your frustration shared, but this idea is a time bomb which could hurt us worse than anything we are seeking to prevent.

Having said that, there are limits to free speech which should be respected in the name of national security.  To understand this, we have to understand what we mean by free speech. Basically, it means the government should not restrict what we say but over time even that has been modified, so  for instance that famous  "yelling fire in a crowded movie" is not covered. Thus there exists precedents for limiting speech that is considered dangerous, however that is defined, and I guess that who is doing the defining is part of the problem. However, on the whole, the government is not allowed to stop you from saying something. Yet that doesn't mean you can say anything and not face consequences. For instance, Libel laws say if you slander someone they can seek punishment, and treason laws ensure you will be punished [unless you are the NY Times it seems] for revealing certain state secrets. I have to admit that I find it hard to differentiate between speech which is forbidden by the government and speech which is punished under government issued laws if uttered, but I  assume that technical and legal niceties allow the First Amendment to be upheld in word if not spirit, Or maybe I am wrong, and free speech is abrogated a lot more often then we realize. Once you begin thinking about it , it is not as clear as you first thought. Welcome to interesting times.

Another point I would like to make before examining the recent Liberal attack on the First Amendment is that just because you can say something doesn't give it value or pertinence. Indeed, the whole concept of free speech is that in the "marketplace of ideas" the good ones and the bad ones will be separated, and the bad ones thrown out with the trash. Unfortunately, many people, especially Liberals, have come to assume that all speech  has value and , even once disparaged , should be maintained and propagated, at least when it serves their purposes.  All the instances of leftist professors reviling the obvious facts about the WTC bombings is a particular sore point with me. Yes, the government should not, and did not, stop them from speaking out, but once they made their points known and all intelligent people rejected them and objected to their children being taught  nonsense, the offending propaganda should have been stopped by someone or something. The market had spoken but still the MSM and Liberals refused to  accept this, and so the lies still live. There must be a mechanism to allow the marketplace of ideas to rid itself of speech which has been tried and found wanting, but the Left can keep them alive indefinitely, and so we are inundated with hogwash we would rather allocate to the dustbin. A defective car is recalled and fixed, but a defective idea can be splashed across the The NY Times for as long as the publisher wants. Maybe what needs modifying is not the first Amendment but the mechanism for enforcing the opinion of the American republic regarding repugnant ideas. Again, I always fear the law of unintended consequences [ which I feel should be enshrined as the first Commandment of the Conservative movement], and maybe there is no good way to do this short of censorship, something I abhor the thought of because of my fear of the tyranny of the masses. We may just have to accept that the system is not perfect, but we all knew that anyway.

Before I end this seemingly endless diatribe, I do want to mention the Left's newest attack on speech, this one coming from the esteemed Jesse Jackson, who wants to basically outlaw the  derogatory term for Blacks [ I was going to be politically correct and say Black Americans but I assume Jackson doesn't want it used for any person of African heritage, and I didn't have enough space to say Black-Brazilian, Black-Chinese, Black-Swiss, etc.] that Michael Richards recently used.  Now I am not defending it's use, but the truth is that here we have the usual Liberal response to something they don't like, and their usual failure to realize that non objectionable speech doesn't need protection and  that the First Amendment is for that language which someone would seek to suppress.  If I didn't defend Gingrich's attempt to restrict speech for national security, you must know I am not going to defend this Liberal attempt to prevent  a group from being offended , and for the same reasons as I discussed above [ slippery slope and all that]. However, in the context of my reservations about the limits of the "marketplace of ideas" to weed out the offensive or false ideas, I think it is worth noting that in this case the system has worked [when was the last time you saw the MSM use this word?], and its use has been marginalized to individuals who may be bigots or angry or whatever. Jackson's attempt to hound this word to extinction is just another example of the Liberal's ongoing effort to create their absolutely perfect world, and if censorship may be the outcome, well as long as its the other guy's ideas that are outlawed they have no problem with that.

So  there you have it. The Right attacks the First Amendment for national security purposes, armed with the evidence that the MSM is not going to police itself or be troubled by little concerns like truth or imminent danger, the Left seeks to restrict speech so as to totally eliminate a word used on the margins of society by troubled individuals. I guess on second thought, while I am troubled by both efforts, the Right's reasoning is a lot more understandable and justified, but isn't that usually the case?

Gays, the poster children for Liberal compassion and a higher standard of liberty than that espoused by poor, narrow minded Conservatives, are proving to be just as venal and self centered as all us believers in antiquated heterosexuality. First, after finally getting a state to legalize marriage [I guess Massachusetts is a state- the Soviet Union never annexed it or San Francisco as far as I know even though their sympathies lied there] they are now rushing to get divorced, with some of the unions lasting just a matter of months [I guess they are following the Kid Rock-Pamela Anderson school of intimate relationships].  So after all the heartfelt pleas to just be allowed to form a relationship for life, we find them putting all the effort into marriage that one would expect from a five year old taking piano lessons.  Interesting how quickly the "specialness" of the ceremony, and what it stood for, wore off.

Now comes news that the first lesbian fire chief of a major city has stepped down, after having both sexual harassment suits from other females and a discrimination suit from a male lodged against her.  The man alleges that he was not promoted because he was not gay, a contention which mirrors charges that had been found to be 'likely" earlier in the woman's career.

Now as a Conservative, human failings do not surprise me, and so what this woman has done is  just prove she is a person with all their commensurate faults and weaknesses. However, I would like to see the Liberal MSM and politicians step up and condemn her and other instances of "gay oppression" just like they do when gays are the victims, but somehow I don't think that is going to happen.  I guess their indignation only works one way, and political correctness dictates who can be discriminated against and who can't almost by definition.  I am starting to realize how hard it must be to be a Liberal- after all, you don't want to inadvertently extend your compassion and high mindedness to the wrong groups.

As Alcee Hastings attempts to  rewrite history [a favorite Liberal pastime right up there with besmirching the United States military]  and downplay the importance of his  impeachment by claiming it was just "political" [talk about stating the obvious] ,  the true story and its significance is reported by Byron York [ see ]. In his usual thorough and insightful fashion, York shows why Hastings is being disingenuous in painting himself a victim of political machinations, and in truth, the 413-4 final vote is more accurately described as a bipartisan judgement of guilt based on an indepth and impartial investigation [I'm sure Hastings doesn't want to hear that!]. Underlying the whole matter, you can almost hear the subtle intimations of racism which seem to be implied in the defense of Hastings,  but the fact that John Conyers, who is also black, took such a dominant role in the investigation, and determined to his satisfaction that impeachment was justified and warranted puts the lie to that old faithful last resort of the Liberal establishment. Based on  this article, if Hastings gets the chairmanship it will not only be a disgrace and black mark against the entire Democratic party and especially Pelosi, but also a  denigration of the American governing system in the eyes of the world.

 Democrat Bennie Thompson(MS) has decided giving workers 60 days to correct mismatched Social Security numbers or be fired is “discriminatory” and in violation of immigration law and is threatening a company which is seeking to apply this rule as recommended by the the Department of Homeland Security [see article ] as a deterrent to hiring illegal aliens. Thus we see how the Democrats, who have resisted tougher border security measures by claiming that they are unnecessary if we remove the incentive of jobs, are going to follow through on their tough talk – by resisting every effort to stop the hiring of illegal aliens! Just as they did by protesting picture ID’s for voting, the Democrats are now claiming that undue and unfair requirements are being placed on innocent people- in this case TWO MONTHS is just not long enough to correct a social security number which has been, ahem, mistakenly submitted for employment. Well what would be fair , six months, two years, five years? There obviously is no answer which would satisfy Thompson, who says the policy would be a “ threat to workers who fail to reverify their information”. How insightful of the Congressman! Yes, it would be a threat , if preventing people who are illegally in this country from being employed in violation of federal law, can be called a threat. I call it law enforcement, but what do I know? And as an added bonus to this whole affair, Thompson is in line to be chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and is promising to reconsider the plan for 700 miles of border fencing passed recently, and says it may be scrapped. No wall, no border security, no deterrents to hiring illegal aliens: welcome to the new Democratic Congress and its open arms for open borders. I feel safer already!

Not unexpectedly, now that the Dems are going to full frontal assault on the Iraqi War, criticism  from Conservatives is also appearing, such as this article by Christopher Orlet in The American Spectator. Its  a good piece, and it just so happens that on 10/27 I wrote a post which basically agrees with his premise that any war to "impose" democracy runs counter to Conservative belief in the importance of existing institutions, and the need for countervailing structures which take decades if not more to develop to ensure that majority rule does not evolve into tyranny of the mob. The Iraqi war, as a method for toppling a dictator who may have had weapons dangerous to us, was justified and understandable from the power politics that are a core tenet of Conservatism; the attempt to implant democracy is an idealistic mission straight from the Liberal playbook [which makes their adversarial position both ironic and hypocritical] which is living up to the predictions of many Conservative pundits. However, the question remains, if not attempts like democratizing Iraq, then what strategy remains for us in the War on Terror?

The choices are stark, and frightening, both for us and for the world. If we retreat from Iraq with our tail between our legs we shall see the Mideast descend into chaos [its already happening actually], and the Islamofascists, claiming victory over the Great Satan, shall find their coffers overflowing with money and recruits [nothing attracts converts like success, something that Liberals are  going to find out to all our regret]. As the region becomes more unstable and radicalized, our oil supplies will be threatened, and for all those SVU driving Liberals who condemn fighting for oil, they will find that without that vulgar commodity we will quickly find our economy contracting, if not worse. And to rebut all those who will look to alternate and renewal fuel as the answer as we seek to stay inside Fortress America I offer this excellent piece from Reason magazine which explains that no matter what we do, fossil fuels are the only real choice we have to power our societies, at least for the foreseeable future, even if we maximize things like nuclear, wind, hydro, etc. The only alternative we have is to go back to individual subsistence agriculture and those wonderful times we call the medieval ages. Like it or not, oil is a major reason the Modern age is modern. Handing it over to Islamic fanatics is not a , er, prudent thing to do.

At the same time that the Middle East is roiling, Europe will be boiling, as the French countryside, with its burning cars, attests to.  For those internationalists out there, it is time to wake up! Europe will fall to the Islamists because they no longer have the moral or cultural strength to resist it. Relativism is an insidious concept which drains your reasons for protecting yourself. After all, if all things are equally valid, why fight those who so obviously want it more?  Europe will fall not from fear but from apathy and confusion, as they try to appease the enemy who is trying to kill them. If not for the US, the only European language would be German today. In 50 years, it may be Arabic.

So where does all this leave us? For starters, looking over our shoulders, waiting for another attack on our homeland, always wondering if the next one will be nuclear or chemical or biological, and how many thousands or more will die.  There is an example out there which might give us some comfort, Israel, which has existed like this for 60 years. However, in this case our size works against us, as trying to police our borders, food supply, transportation systems, utility networks, chemical plants et al is in fact an impossible mission for which we have no Tom Cruise like character to save us. Sooner or later, if we sit and wait, we will lose.

So our only option will be a world war, one of either extermination or imperial domination.  Writing this is a difficult thing, so foreign from the thinking of Americans who really do try to get along with the rest of the world , regardless of what the ranting of Chavez and his kind say. But if we truly face a world filling up with people who want to kill us, and make no mistake about it, that is the aim of the Islamic fanatics, what choice do we have but to kill them?  Yes, the ghost of Neville Chamberlain will inspire some Liberals, but God willing, they will not succeed in emasculating us. And so we will find ourselves engaged on a new crusade, not to reclaim the Holy Land, but to survive, and this will last not for years, but decades. Us or them, its a stark , clear choice, and we better understand it or we will have lost before we have even begun.

So there you have it, the only alternative strategy to trying to reform Islamic society as we are doing in Iraq. Has that attempt been idealistic, maybe even fanciful? Most certainly yes, but as the referenced article points out, unless we can expose the Islamic people and faith to their version of the Reformation and Enlightenment, and by so doing, leaven the harshness of their beliefs to the point where we can live with them, we are doomed to fight them to the death. It may come to that anyway, but at least Bush has tried to do the valiant, if vain, thing in Iraq. All those Liberals and Conservatives mocking and criticizing him will be judged by our children and grandchildren if they bestow on them a world war instead.

As the euphoria of their victory begins to wear off, and their nominal attempts at being magnanimous and bipartisan fade, some of the guiding lights of the Liberal party are putting forth the lessons they have learned and the solutions they perceive are required to right the terrible wrongs perpetrated throughout the world during the reign of the horrible conservatives, and, no big surprise, these include more power for and faith in the UN and a blatant rejection of any kind of centrism and the imposition of hard left economic policies. The horror show begins.

In the international arena, Jeffrey Sachs, a man who once was a realistic proponent of market based solutions to the problems facing the newly liberated Eastern European countries has reversed directions and become a proponent of more and more foreign aid being the cure all for what plagues third world nations. As a new Secretary General of the UN gets ready to take power, Mr. Sachs hails his country of South Korea as one of the practitioners of the new paradigm of diplomacy and economic incentives  needed to sooth the trouble spots that sanctions and force have failed to bring to heel. I know I get all warm inside thinking about what a good job the Koreans have done in moderating and pacifying Kim Jong Il, who now tests nuclear bombs while threatening to attack those who defy him, all this as his people starve to death.  Job well done I say! I can't wait to see how this approach plays out with the Iranians, Syrians, Sudanese and others. Maybe we should just give them all nuclear weapons and all the money they want right now, and save ourselves the trial of torture by a thousand cuts. What is Sachs thinking? All studies have shown that just throwing money at corrupt governments make matters worse, not better, and depending on diplomacy while removing the threat of force is like having police officers with no guns or jails; let's just say credibility is missing. How can Liberals be so blind in understanding how the world works?

Which brings us to Robert Kuttner, a man I place just a little to the left of Marx. In a diatribe in the Boston Globe, Mr. Kuttner analyzes the result of the elections, announces it was an economic referendum, even though most polls I saw of voter concerns came up with single digit interest in an economy that has added millions of jobs, reached record stock market heights, and produced a rate of growth unmatched in the industrial world,  and decides that any attempts at centrism or bipartisanship is futile. Instead, he calls for "a progressive politics far more robust than we've seen in decades ", codewords for Socialism, and the decades he refers to is probably seven, going back to the Depression. In announcing this oracular decree, Kuttner feels that Robert Rubin, who is advocating tax increases, and Barney Franks, who is trying to widen health care coverage and increase the minimum wage and union power, are not going nearly far enough at all, and he even lumps Rubin in with the supporters of a "globalized casino economy", harsh words for the man Clintonites felt did such a bang up job as Secretary of the Treasury.
 
As this rant proves, Kuttner is a raving Socialist who has never met a position he couldn't get to the left of , and the question now is how much will the Democratic party kowtow to the likes of him as they seek to reshape the US in the mold of the Socialism of Europe?  While I harbor hopes that even the party of Pelosi has to realize how wacky the ideas of Kuttner and his ilk are, the damage they can cause even if only slightly implemented keeps me up nights in a cold sweat. We are entering dark times, and while national security is the prime concern, the dangers we face also threaten our financial well being and way of life.  We can be hurt with legislation that destroys our economy just as badly as by a bomb , if not worse. At the risk of sounding paranoid, our enemies are everywhere.

I love the movie "Independence Day ", the scifi story about an Alien invasion. When it came out 10 years ago I went with my daughter to see it repeatedly-neither one of us seemed to get tired of it. Not being an intellectual critic, I thought I liked it because it was entertaining, never lagged, and was almost mythic in its message. I still get thrills listening to the President's " We shall not go quietly into the Night" speech towards the end, and if Bill Pullman ever ran for the office I would be tempted to vote for him.

However, watching it today is a vastly different experience for me. Back in those "innocent" days when some philosophers proclaimed the end of history and the triumph of the West, I , like most of us, basked in what seemed the ultimate victory after we had defeated the Soviet Union without firing a shot. The world seemed , finally, like a benign if not benevolent place  to raise my young child, and the future glowed rosy.

Now when I watch the movie, I view it through the prism of 9/11, as I do so many things, and while I still enjoy it, now I take a precautionary message away from it.  When the young JFK-like President is standing before the captured alien, still trying to reason with it, still holding to his obvious liberal belief that negotiations and understanding can stop an enemy that is decimating the world, I cringe. And when the alien's answer to the question of what they want us to do is a simple "die!", I watch as the President loses his innocence as he realizes his Liberal beliefs are pie in the sky, and in his place a Conservative is born,  a man who understands that against some enemies only force will work, for evil exists and is not just a figment of a theologian's medieval mindset.  And as he prays for God's forgiveness when he orders a nuclear attack, I see the understanding that sometimes you must do things you regret because they must be done to protect your loved ones and your world. None of the high minded certainty that a Liberal wears like a mantle as he attempts to engineer the world, but rather the humility before God that Conservatives all share as they attempt to do the right thing in a world with no signposts.

Today we face those aliens, beings who just want us to die, and while instead of having superior technology they almost seem to be primitive in some of their weapons and strategies as they wage their jihad, they are no less lethal for it. And as we confront them I pray to God that our leaders and our people will understand the nature of what we face, and not be blinded by Liberal relativism which seeks to "understand" the enemy [who according to the ultra leftist Rosie O'Donnell are just mothers and fathers like us. Wow, I'd hate to see her family get togethers.] even as he kills us. If we could truly see through their eyes we would be looking down a gun sight at ourselves, and that is what we must never forget. Maybe "Independence Day" should be required viewing for Congress.

To get insight into Liberal thinking regarding the possibility of Alcee Hastings, a man who was impeached in 1988 by Congress by a vote of 413-4, being named head of the House Intelligence Committee, I read an article in The Nation [I don't think I have ever looked at that site before. Normally I get a rash that close to Liberal nonsense, but the magnanimity of the Thanksgiving  spirit must have infected me ] by David Corn, and was actually surprised that the Left can see where it might be a "problem" for Pelosi to choose him. But I found it even more interesting that I was impressed  that the new governing party of the US seems to have the practical morality to at least debate the merits of handing over intelligence oversight during wartime to someone many of them  believe has accepted major bribes while in office.  Talk about low expectations! The Liberals have gotten us to the point where if they don't immediately embrace someone like Hastings with open arms [they may very well still place him in the position] we can begin to see some virtue in them. And that brings up my second point; if Hastings were a Republican, how many of you think he would still be in Congress, let alone up for such a prestigious position? This is just another amazing display of the double standards that the American people seem to use when evaluating the parties. The question is, can this country afford a party that is accepted as morally and ethically "challenged", as if this was a physical defect covered by  the laws against discrimination, during wartime? I guess we will find out over the next two years.

I guess Barack Obama, the so-called "moderate" Democrat, has decided cut and run is the strategy for Iraq. In justifying his defeatist stance, he expresses his belief that "all the troops in the world" couldn't force the feuding Islam sects to sit down and negotiate, an interesting statement which shows the truly Liberal mindset of this man, who has up to now sought to depict himself as a centrist.  Only a Liberal could so totally underestimate the effectiveness of military power, which has saved the world from totalitarian threats so many times in the past one hundred years. Yes, reconciling these feuding Islamists has proven a difficult task, but most military experts have blamed the failure on too few troops, which  has allowed the militias free reign and thus prevented the spread of negotiations and compromise. It is always scary to hear a person being hailed as a future presidential candidate so totally dismiss the military,  and reminds me of the appeasers in the 1930's who just didn't believe that military force was worth considering in weighing the options for confronting Hitler. By revealing his true beliefs, and bending to the left wing of his party, Obama may have dealt himself the first serious setback to his so far golden career path.