EXPERTS disAGREE: In 1997, Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, invited colleagues to sign a petition based on Robinson's work, which received more than 20,000 signers, most of whom hold advanced degrees in relevant fields of study. That petition stated, in part:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

-- PatriotPost.US, 2/23/07

FEARING WHAT IS NORMAL: A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. -- Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, PatriotPost.US, 2/23/07

METEOROLOGICAL METRIC: The degree to which you believe global warming is causing major hurricanes, is inversely proportional to your knowledge about these storms. -- Dr. William Gray, meteorologist, PatriotPost.US, 2/23/07

THE IMPUGN-THE-DOUBTER DEFENSE: It is a classic notion on the left in general, and of environmentalist zealots in particular, that no one can disagree with them unless they are either uninformed or dishonest. -- Thomas Sowell

THE SCIENCE IS CONCLUSIVE: The political left's favorite argument is that there is no argument. -- Thomas Sowell

DAVID O. ROMNEY? There is no work more important for our nation's future than the work done in the home. . . . How is the American family made stronger? With marriage before children. With a mother and a father in the life of every child. With healthcare that is affordable and portable. With schools that succeed. With taxes that are lower. And with leaders who strive to demonstrate enduring values and morality. -- Mitt Romney, meridianmagazine.com, 2/14/07

MITT'S PLATFORM:

• I love America and I believe in the people of America.
• I believe in God and I believe that every person in this great country, and every person on this grand planet, is a child of God. We are all sisters and brothers.
• I believe the family is the foundation of America -- and that we must fight to protect and strengthen it.
• I believe in the sanctity of human life.
• I believe that people and their elected representatives should make our laws, not unelected judges.
• I believe we are overtaxed and government is overfed. Washington is spending too much money.
• I believe that homeland security begins with securing our borders.
• I believe the best days of this country are ahead of us, because . . . I believe in America!

-- Mitt Romney, meridianmagazine.com, 2/14/07

[ ... and I believe we have some common ground, here! -- KJK ]

HOW 'BOUT AN OUTSIDER WITH A SOLID TRACK RECORD? I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician. There have been too many deals, too many favors, too many entanglements -- and too little real world experience managing, guiding, leading. -- Mitt Romney, meridianmagazine.com, 2/14/07

TO GET REAL: The problem comes when we get so obsessed in our desire for [control, ownership, and independence], and our pursuit of them, that we let the obsession take over our lives. It is in the spiritual context that each of the three is a lie. And the spiritual context is the most important one. Reality is best and most accurately understood as a spiritual paradigm. And it is in the eternal, spiritual "things-as-they-really-are" point of view, that control, ownership, and independence do not exist. . . . I have become convinced that real Balance in life (and the peace and fulfillment that comes with it) is an inner thing that is obtained by putting our desires in harmony with reality and with the will of God. -- Richard Eyre, meridianmagazine.com, 2/9/07

AN IMPOSSIBLE PEACE: While secular and traitorous tyrants might come to the conclusion that since they cannot militarily defeat Israel, prudence would dictate entering into a peace treaty with the Zionists, this approach is not Islamic. As [Mary] Habeck tells it, traditional Islam simply does not recognize a permanent treaty with infidels. -- David Yerushalmi, townhall.com, 9/6/06

JOE LIEBERMAN IS DEAD RIGHT!
Thanx to my son-in-law, Nick, for posting an excerpt from the New York Post article about Lieberman's articulate rebuke of the Iraq resolution. Please read it. Those pushing the resolution renouncing Iraq war actions must either be ignorant of history, human psychology, congressional propriety, and patriotic dignity (i.e. fools), or they are acting purposefully in blatant, malicious defiance calculated to demoralize and weaken our forces for no more virtuous end than political currency. The objectives of the latter can only be defeat in Iraq and empowerment of evil. Congressmen, ask yourselves which it is: Are you a fool or a demon? -- kjk.

A CONVENIENT UNTRUTH

[Inciting hysteria] has been the standard approach to building community consensus for federal action on global warming at least since 1989, when Stanford biological sciences professor Stephen Schneider told Discover Magazine that October, "We [scientists] need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

Among others, Al Gore agrees with that approach. Last year he told the environmentalist magazine Grist, "I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations" – what a euphemism! – "on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."

-- Jon Sanders, townhall.com, 1/31/07

[ "Over-representation" is the same as exaggeration which, any way you cut it, is a CONVENIENT UNTRUTH" -- Kirt]

FOR THE GOOD OF YOUR FAMILY:

1. Give your children two parents who are married to each other and live in the same dwelling, and who are kind to each other and to the children.
2. Don't put your children to work, except for a reasonable number of chores;let them play -- and play with them at their games.
3. Connect your children to the natural world -- get them out of the house,with a rational amount of freedom and a chance to explore.
4. Keep in mind that parents who mean well and try hard generally do OK even if they make mistakes along the way.

-- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 1/07/07

LIFE AND THE LEFT: The left's repeated message that life is not precious, whether it be embryonic, pre-born, weak, or elderly should give us a clue about how we can anticipate they will value our troops in Iraq. They're all expendable. There is nothing new under the sun! -- Stacy, Minnesota

GOVERNMENT GOVERNED BY THE GOVERNED: We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. -- Ronald Reagan

THE CHINA-SPACE-SEA-IRAQ PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL: China is moving toward a space warfare capability. . . . The threat to China is the U.S. Navy. . . . The U.S. Navy could interdict China's movement of goods far more readily than China could interdict American movement of goods. . . . China may not be able to control the sea itself, but it cannot live forever with U.S. control. Therefore, it requires a sea-lane-denial strategy. . . . Pursuing a conventional naval strategy will not provide a strategic solution for China within a reasonable time frame. . . . Take out the space-based systems and the efficiency of the [U.S.] Navy plummets dramatically. . . . From the Chinese point of view, the denial of space to the United States would undermine American denial of the seas to China. . . . One of the greatest prices of the Iraq war is . . . the fact that it makes it impossible for the U.S. military to allocate resources for emerging threats. . . [such as the] palpable challenge being posed by China in space. -- George Friedman, Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 1/23/07

THANX, JIMMY! The Carter administration's role in assisting with the downfall of the Shah is one of America's great foreign policy disasters of the twentieth century. In trying to get rid of the bad guy, Carter got the worse guy. His failure, as former Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, was the result of being "unable to distinguish between America's friends and enemies." Carter does not deserve sole discredit for these actions. This intellectual framework that shaped Carter's misguided strategy was supplied by the political left. -- Dinesh D'Souza, townhall, 1/29/07

HOW TO GET DEMOCRAT SUPPORT IN IRAQ

The 11th Commandment for liberals seems to be, "Thou shalt not intervene out of self-interest." Intervening in civil wars for humanitarian reasons is OK, but meddling for national security reasons is not. This would explain why liberals supported interventions in civil wars in Yugoslavia and Somalia but think being in one in Iraq is the height of folly. If only Truman had called the Korean civil war a humanitarian crisis, Ike might not have called the whole thing off. . . .

There seems to be only one hope for persuading the Democrats to support staying in Iraq. Let's just beat the rush and call Iraq a humanitarian crisis now. It surely is already. And if we leave prematurely, Iraq will undoubtedly give Darfur and Yugoslavia a run for their money as a humanitarian horror show. Why wait for calls to return to stop the bloodshed?

-- Jonah Goldberg, townhall.com, 1/26/07

STANDING FOR . . . WHAT?
The Democrats have no idea what they stand for, the Republicans only remember what they stood for.
-- Peggy Noonan, opinionjournal.com, 1/26/07

THE FOOL'S OPTION: Negotiating only works if you have something the other side needs or are prepared to do something the other side fears. This is always true. There are no exceptions, ever, in all of history. And if we withdraw from Iraq without victory, we will have nothing left that the other side wants or fears from us. -- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 1/14/07

TO DO THE JOB RIGHT

President Bush's [1/11/07 Fort Benning] speech had one paragraph that is the single most important thing he said:

"It's important for Iran and Syria to understand that we will disrupt their attacks on our forces, that we will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. We'll seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

. . . It is a declaration that we will take military action in Syria and Iran.

-- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 1/14/07

THE RIGHT THING AND THE WRONG THING

After 9/11 made it clear that hand-wringing and a few cruise missiles were not enough to stop the America-hating madmen of Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups and nations, we had a President who did not make the mistakes of France and Britain during the 1930s. The nations supporting terrorism did not yet have the capability to unify Islam and challenge the survival of the West.

So President Bush did the right thing; even if some of the steps along the way were mistaken, it was vital that we act boldly and visibly.

His policies were immediately effective in the changed behavior of most terror-sponsoring states.

However, years of vocal and increasingly effective Democratic anti-Bush propaganda, designed to achieve no higher purpose than the political defeat of George W. Bush, have emboldened our enemies everywhere. Democratic Bush-haters can claim that Bush has lowered our prestige in the world, but the opposite is true. Where it counts -- among those nations that support terrorism -- Bush vastly raised our prestige, and the Democrats have shockingly lowered it. . . .

Only if the Democrats have their way and we go down to voluntary and unnecessary defeat in a war that we did not start -- only then will it become clear how wise and essential President Bush's policies were. The Democrats will try to blame the disaster on Bush, but the American people will know that things went hopelessly wrong only after the Democrats forced our premature surrender to Islamo-fascism in Iraq.

-- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 1/14/07

BLOODBATH ON OUR HANDS . . . AND HEAD
In Iraq, like Vietnam, cowardly and dishonorable withdrawal by the United States will result in a bloodbath. Anyone who supported us and the cause of Iraqi democracy will be dead in short order. No reeducation camps -- fanatical Islam doesn't have a doctrine of redemption, just of execution. . . .

Our departure from Iraq, without leaving behind a strong and viable democratic government committed to fighting terrorism, will lead immediately to all the secular governments in the region making their peace with Islamofascists -- or being overthrown by them. They will have no alternative, once the United States is revealed as having no will to resist the terrorists. . . .

Make no mistake: Regardless of what the America-haters in the West declare, America is the last, best hope of the vast majority of people in the Middle East who wish to live in peace, under governments that will keep them safe but otherwise leave them alone to live their lives.
-- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 1/14/07

BE VERY AFRAID

The common denominator of all these recent predictions of doom [i.e. climate change, overpopulation, etc.] is that we are told that there is only one way to prevent certain disaster: hand over our individual freedoms and control of the economy to a political elite. . . .

The content of the predictions themselves is irrelevant, the general solution is always the same: hand control of politics and the economy over to an elite who know what is good for us, and they will save you from yourselves.

In other words, hand money, power and fame to the few and they will reward you with your lives. Pretty much the same deal that feudal lords gave their serfs.

The prophesies of doom and gloom are just another version of a political and intellectual elite grasping for power. And of that, I would say, you should be very afraid.

-- David Strom, townhall.com, 1/26/07

TO WORK WITH DEMOCRATS: The president should forge an alliance with conservative Democrats who were elected last fall precisely because they are not liberals. Such a strategy might circumvent the liberal House and Senate Democratic leadership, which would find it difficult to penalize them because without them there would likely be no Speaker Pelosi. -- Cal Thomas, townhall.com, 1/25/07

BUSH QUALIFIES: First principles plus the resolve to defend them are the mark of great presidents, and it has always been so in the history of the country. -- Hugh Hewitt, townhall.com, 1/24/07

KYOTO NO GO: Last year, 60 prominent scientists signed a letter saying, "Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. . . . Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary. . . . It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas." -- Walter Williams, townhall.com, 1/24/07

CULTURAL MARXISM

Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a a version of Marxism which seeks a radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social revolution. . . . The new version is simply Marxism translated from economic terms into cultural terms. . . . The correct label for this modified version is Cultural Marxism. . . .

By the late 1960's, the New Left's Gramscian-style cultural revolution had begun in earnest in both America and the West. Disguising malignant intent behind code words such as multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, safe schools/safe sex, same-sex marriage, 'gay' rights, choice, and peace, New Left revolutionaries began taking America and the West down the path to familial and cultural suicide. Partnered to their campaign of nihilism has been a relentlessly brutal assault on Christians, Orthodox Jews, conservatives, the military, and straight males(particularly white males) in which all are marginalized, psychologically bullied and targeted as 'homophobes, bigots, racists, fascists, intolerant, divisive,and mentally ill," or in other words, "Enemies of the People." . . .

Through utilization of a protracted stealth campaign to impose Cultural Marxism on America and the West, the New Left has succeeded in inverting our social, cultural, political, and moral order. As a result, we now exist in an Orwellian 'upside-down' world where, as evil subterranean forces work tirelessly to subvert and pervert our children, abolish marriage, abort our future citizens (babies), throw open our borders, undermine our laws and in short, to utterly destroy our civilizations, the source of evil brazenly accuses the defenders of 'home and hearth' of being "intolerant, bigoted, sexist, racist, fascist, homophobic, and insane." This is like a sociopath accusing the morally upright man of being a sociopath. . . .

Political activism by conservatives, Christians, and all traditional-values patriots is no longer just a civic and moral duty. It's now a matter of our very survival.

-- Linda Kimball, opinioneditorials.com, 1/24/07

CHRISTIANITY IS MOST DESIRABLE: The Christian religion, when divested of the rags [that] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor [Jesus], is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1801

FEELINGS AND FACTS: As a broad rule, intentions are the currency of the left, while results matter most to the right. That is why Bill Clinton made a point of feeling our pain, while Ronald Reagan insisted that facts were stubborn things. -- Jeff Jacoby

THE POWER OF RANTING: One of the scariest aspects of our times is how easy it is for glib loudmouths to turn us against each other, weakening the whole framework of society, on which we all depend. -- Thomas Sowell

YOU CAN'T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER: I cannot think of a single example at any time or any place where there was a large measure of political freedom without there also being something comparable to a private enterprise market form of economic organization for the bulk of economic activity. -- Milton Friedman

SACRIFICE THE IRAQ GOVERNMENT? [D]emocracy arose in western civilization centuries after law and order had been established. We tried to do it in the reverse order in Iraq. . . . Our choice may become whether we are prepared to sacrifice more American lives in order to prop up the Maliki government or whether we are prepared to sacrifice the Maliki government in order to restore law and order in Iraq. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 1/16/07

WATCH FOR CHINESE FIREWORKS

Every society changes from one day to the next. But the economic and social transformation in China, especially since the beginning of the reform era in December 1978, has been particularly startling. Mao regimented the Chinese people, oppressed them, clothed them in totalitarian garb, and denied them their individuality. Today, they may not be free, but they are assertive, dynamic, and sassy. A mall-shopping, Internet connected, trend-crazy people, they are remaking their country at breakneck speed. Deprived for decades, they do not only want more, they want everything. Change of this sort is inherently destabilizing, especially in a one-party state. . . .

Leaving China a half-decade ago, an American banker remarked: "There's a billion people here who don't like following instructions." If anything, Chinese society since then has become even more willful. It may not always be defiant, but it is frequently disobedient. For better and also for worse, we have entered a period marked by the emergence of a great people from millennia of autocratic rule. For better -- because a nation that can barely govern itself will not be capable of dominating the other 200 countries on the planet. For worse -- because so turbulent and fretful a society is unlikely to rise peacefully, or to accept its role as a great power in orderly fashion. Thirty years after the death of Mao, the Chinese people have unfinished business to conduct, and their transition into the future is unlikely to be smooth.

-- Gordon G. Chang, China In Revolt, CommentaryMagazine.com, December 2006

UNDERSTAND WHO WE ARE: The irony is that by focusing relentlessly on man's origin, not man's being, ID (Intelligent Design) theorists ultimately make the same error as orthodox Darwinians. In an age when biotechnology may soon allow us to redraw the biological boundaries between man and the other animals, what we need to understand is not the human beginning but the human difference. Who we are, not where we came from, is the question that matters most. -- Eric Cohen, The Human Difference, Commentarymagazine.com, December 2006

IRAQ: WHY AND HOW WE GOT WHERE WE ARE

IF NOT IRAQ, THEN WHERE, WHEN AND AT WHAT COST?

Mark Alexander
Amid all the political posturing about whether we should surge into or out of Iraq, a reality check with the rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom is in order when considering the Bush administration’s revised operation plan, and rules of engagement, to accomplish our OIF mission. Of course, reality checks have never been prerequisite to the Democrats’ foreign-policy positions, especially in the perpetual election cycle. Hard realities, after all, make for difficult decisions.
For the record, on 11 September 2001, before the dust had settled over lower Manhattan and the Pentagon, U.S. military and intelligence analysts determined, correctly, that the architect of the attacks that morning was sheik Osama bin Laden. He was the chief Imam of Jihadistan, that borderless nation of Islamic extremists comprising al-Qa’ida and other Muslim terrorist groups around the world.

Though not a symmetric threat to the West (one with well-defined political, economic and geographic objectives), it became crystal clear that fateful morning that Osama and his Jihadi adherents would use any means at their disposal to cripple the West.

Jihadi terrorists had attacked western civilian targets for more than two decades, with limited retaliation. However, all that changed when our nation watched as some 3,000 of our fellow Americans were slaughtered by just a handful of al-Qa’ida terrorists.

In a world where the proliferation of nuclear WMD is a growth industry, the Bush administration launched a bold military campaign to push back the frontlines of this war to its strongholds in the Middle East, in order to thwart additional attacks on U.S. urban centers. After containing Jihadi forces in Afghanistan, our best national estimates were that Iraq posed the greatest threat to regional stability and was the most likely conduit for Jihadi WMD.

On 19 March 2003, after long deliberations by the UN, the U.S. and our allies invaded Iraq. The Security Council’s foot-dragging, however, along with substantial help from the French and Russians, had provided an ample window for Saddam to export some or all of his WMD to Syria and Iran.

OIF had several objectives—which were, and remain, within the margin of our critical national interests. The short-term tactical objectives were to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam’s tyrannical rule and remove Iraq as a conduit for WMD. The long-term strategic objectives were, and remain, to establish a democratic Muslim state to support regional stability and an ally who would permit forward deployment bases for limited personnel but significant military hardware.
The rub, and it’s a big one, is that when the U.S. launched OIF, it was estimated by war planners that major hostilities would cease within 90-120 days. While “major,” in this case, is certainly open to interpretation, (noting that any combat operation is major when incoming rounds are intended for you), no estimates projected that we would still be involved in combat operations almost four years into OIF.

Of course, no war plan survives the opening salvo.

However, listening to the Democrats accuse the administration of lying about Iraq, and then using that canard to effect a politically expedient sounding of the retreat, one must conclude that these Demos think they are bulletproof in regard to their own opinions in advance of OIF.

Fact is, however, every prominent Democrat was once of the same opinion as the Bush administration. The only difference now is that those Democrats long ago lost their will to fight. They’re now as eager as al-Qa’ida to see the U.S. retreat from Iraq.

What has ground OIF into a virtual stalemate for three years is the influx of Jihadi insurgents and domestic tribal and sectarian fractionalization, which continue to destabilize efforts by the Iraqi government to establish social and economic order, particularly in Baghdad.

Given the Democrats’ effective politicization of OIF in the run-up to midterm elections last October, and given the degree to which their hand-wringing had undermined our national will to stay the course in Iraq, President Bush had little chance of obtaining public support for sending additional forces to the region. Ironically, it is the Democrat victories in both the House and Senate that provided the opening President Bush needed to call for additional troops.

Knowing the Democrats’ penchant for reacting as opposed to acting—because, after all, actions have consequences—the President called their bluff. Wednesday, he appealed to the nation for what military commanders believe will be enough additional troops to stabilize Baghdad and finish the job in Iraq—20,000 more troops (a number far short of the 35,000 troops some Republicans, like Sen. John McCain, insist are needed).

President Bush also called for a much needed and long overdue expansion of service personnel, as outlined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “The President would strengthen our military for the long war against terrorism by authorizing an increase in the overall strength of the Army and the Marine Corps. I am recommending to him a total increase in the two services of 92,000 soldiers and Marines over the next five years—65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines. The emphasis will be on increasing combat capability. This increase will be accomplished in two ways. First, we will propose to make permanent the temporary increase of 30,000 for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps. Then we propose to build up from that base in annual increments of 7,000 troops a year for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps until the Marine Corps reaches a level of 202,000, and the Army would be at 547,000.”

Democrat leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have rejected any “surge option” as a “serious mistake,” instead calling for “phased redeployment” (AKA, “retreat”) in the next four to six months. Politically speaking, Reid and Pelosi are staking out a perilous position, both politically and in terms of our national security.

The hard reality is this: If we don’t finish the OIF mission now, we will have to finish it later and, potentially, at much greater cost, both in terms of human lives and resources. Pulling out of Iraq will have severe implications for the stability of other states in the region, in effect, turning the Gulf over to Jihadistan forces of Iran, Hizballah, Hamas and radical Shi’ites. A retreat will necessitate a return to the region with perhaps four or five times the number of American military personnel now deployed in Iraq.

Shoring up our critical national interest in the Middle East and protecting our homeland from another catastrophic attack must trump rancorous politics.

John Stuart Mill wrote, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.”
Operation Iraqi Freedom is a bitter pill, to be sure, but one that will become less palatable only if we refuse to take it now.

-- Mark Alexander, The Patriot Post, 1/12/07

YOU THINK WE ARE HATED NOW? If you think the world hated America for going into Iraq, imagine how the world will look at an America that flees an imploding nation. The world won't see an America -- as war opponents like to see themselves -- that is virtuous and realistic. They will see wholesale bloodshed, an ally that cannot be trusted and an army that doesn't know how to win. -- Debra Saunders, townhall.com, 1/11/07

POWER to SURGE: [T]he language [of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution] clearly stipulates which Presidential powers require the advice and consent of the US Senate. Sending more troops to Iraq is not among them. -- Rich Galen, townhall.com, 1/11/07

TWO CHOICES: BAD AND FAR WORSE: It may be hard for the world's new impatient generation to accept the truth: There are no simple black-and-white solutions at little cost in today's technologically connected but politically fragmented world. Restless Americans and a demanding global public are going to have to accept that in Afghanistan, Darfur, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Somalia and the West Bank, the United States itself -- not just the bogeyman George Bush -- has only bad and far worse choices. -- Victor Davis Hanson, townhall.com, 1/11/07

VIRTUOUS CIRCLE: With the new strategy, new forces and new generals President Bush is putting in place, we have a fighting chance to create a virtuous circle whereby better security leads to more anti-insurgent cooperation from the public--which in turn leads to still better security. If Congressional Democrats have better suggestions, we'd love to hear them. But the one "strategy" that simply isn't credible is the idea that anybody's interests would be served by a hasty U.S. exit from Iraq. -- editorial, opinionjournal.com, 1/11/07

CITIZENS' LAMENT: “We the People” are becoming an underclass, shoved around and trampled at the whims of the “elected aristocracy” that seeks only to advance its own interests. “Rights” are systematically being granted to a class of people who are within our borders illegally, simply because they hold the promise of blossoming into a robust voting bloc once they extort the title of “citizenship” from the government. And when such “rights” are arbitrarily bestowed where they do not belong, they are concurrently eroded among those who are properly entitled to them. -- Chris Adamo, opinioneditorials.com, 1/11/07

ANTI-MORMON OR PRO-CHRIST? I think a lot of resistance to a Romney Presidency is the fear that this would further the goals, causes of the LDS church. In this respect, the resistance is more anti-Mormon than it is pro-Christ. Anyone sympathetic to this view (if honest) is worshiping a smaller God than that of the Bible, who made it abundantly clear that He uses all things for the good of the believer who loves Him, called according to His purposes. -- Christopher Suleske, opinioneditorials.com, 1/10/07

WE CAN'T RETREAT: The war against global jihadism will be long, and we will experience success and setbacks along the way. The temptation of the West will be to grow impatient and, in the face of this long struggle, to grow weary. Some will demand a quick victory and, absent that, they will want to withdraw from the battle. But this is a war from which we cannot withdraw. As we saw on September 11th, there are no safe harbors in which to hide. Our enemies have declared war on us, and their hatreds cannot be sated. We will either defeat them, or they will come after us with the unsheathed sword. -- Peter Wehner, opinionjournal.com, 1/9/07

WEATHER BULLETIN - DENVER

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event---
may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with an historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

• George Bush did not come.
• FEMA did nothing.
• No one howled for the government.
• No one blamed the government.
• No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
• Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
• Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
• Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
• CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm.
• Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
• No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
• No one looted.
• Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
• Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
• No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.
• No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
• Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
• Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
• The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.
• Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.
• Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.
• We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.
• We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".
• We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."
It does seem that way, at least to me.
I hope this gets passed on.
Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

-- author unknown

A SITTING JUDGE SPEAKS OUT: [Judge Robert H.] Dierker asserts that "illiberal liberals are at the root of the constitutional crisis we face today." In a nutshell, they act as though "(h)istory and tradition count for nothing; the language of the Constitution itself counts for little; the only criterion is whether a ruling will advance the liberal agenda." The false theory that the written text of the U.S. Constitution is "evolving" has been used by the illiberals to transform obscenity, abortion and sodomy from crimes into constitutional rights. Their accomplice in judicial attacks on religion, the ACLU, Judge Dierker says, should be called the "Anti-Christian Litigation Union." -- Phyllis Schlafly, townhall.com, 1/8/07

APPALLED (AND GLAD): We can only hope that the rumor that Israel is going to take out Iran's nuclear weapons facilities is true. If they do, Israel will be widely condemned bygovernments that are breathing a sigh of relief that they did. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 1/9/07

CONSENSUAL MUSH: Whatever the political benefits of making decisions by committees, the need for consensus virtually guarantees the lowest common denominator. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 1/9/07

MILITARY SUPERIORITY IS MORE THAN TECHNOLOGY: Military revolutions are missed not only because of military sloth, delusional leadership, or a reactionary romance with the past, but because of a failure at the elite levels of society either to perceive real threats posed by real external enemies or to countenance the sacrifices necessary to meet those threats. Notable examples include ancient Athens and Rome, turn-of-the-20th-century Russia, and France in the 1930’s. The principal challenge today is not only to hone our military in the face of constantly evolving challenges, but to convince an affluent, leisured, and often cynical American public that that we should even try to do so. -- Victor Davis Hanson, commentarymagazine.com, 12/06

HITLER WAS NO AHMADINEJAD: Anyone who thinks that Iran's leaders can be bargained with, or that threatening them with some useless U.N. resolution is going to dissuade them from eventually turning Jerusalem into a parking lot, is crazier than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. . . . If you thought Hitler was a menace, try Hitler with ten megatons of nuclear destructive force at his disposal, and fifty million followers so fanatical that they would willingly give their lives to ensure the utter annihilation of every Jew and Christian on earth. -- Edward L. Daley, OpinionEditorials.com, 1/3/07

THE ONLY WAR POLICY THAT WORKS: You ask, What is our policy? I will say; it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory... victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival. -- Winston Churchill

VIRTUE: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE: Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions." -- John Adams (letter to Mercy Warren, 16 April 1776)

OPENNESS PROTECTS RIGHTS: The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon . . . has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right. -- James Madison (Virginia Resolutions, 21 December 1798)

IT'S CALLED CHRISTMAS, PEOPLE: This mindless movement of political correctness at all costs is one of the most un-American and crazy twists in our culture as anything we've witnessed. Remember, we're Americans, and we have freedom of speech, that whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing. Or at least we did. And I hope you'll celebrate the Christmas season by offending someone. -- Lou Dobbs

CANDIDATES OF 2028: My guess [is] that in the not so distant future senior elected offices -- in the Congress, statehouses, and certainly the presidency -- would be very difficult to obtain for the young men of today who did not volunteer to come to the defense of their country after it had been attacked on 9/11. Not impossible, but very difficult. Very, very difficult. ... The failure to serve would not be a bar to a successful life in many other fields, but politics is unique in that it requires the consent of voters, and voters generally look for leadership. I don't think it is a stretch to conclude that young men who declined the opportunity to serve in uniform during this war will find themselves being asked "Why didn't you come to the defense of your country after it was attacked?" -- Hugh Hewitt, townhall.com, 12/14/06

FUNERAL HECKLERS: Demonstrators at servicemen's funerals are hecklers, trying to shout down the message of the serviceman's life. They are not exercising freedom of speech, they are denying it -- and denying it to a person who is utterly helpless to speak ever again, because he is dead. This one message is the last he can deliver: That he loved his country, his family, his friends, his fellowcitizens, his duty, his honor -- so much that he put himself in harm's way in order to protect them as the government said they should be protected. That message is one that the survival of our nation and our way of life -- including the freedom to demonstrate for causes noble or stupid -- depends on. A nation that allows that message to be silenced in the name of "freedom" is signing its own death warrant. -- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 12/19/06

WORLDVIEW THEOLOGY:
I believe the main animating difference between conservatism and liberalism is that the former believes in the Biblically revealed sinful condition of mankind. Our Constitution's framers established a system of government around their belief that man-operated government had to be limited and held in check in order for freedom to flourish. Liberalism generally embraces a secular humanist (or enlightenment) faith in the general goodness, perhaps even perfectibility of man.
Conservatives accept that government exists as a necessary evil, to prevent anarchy, establish order and maximize but not absolutize freedom. Human beings within this context will be freer to minimize, but never completely solve society's problems.
By contrast, liberals place their secular faith in government to wholly eradicate societal problems (John Edwards will eliminate poverty in 30 years, following LBJ's 40-year, multi-trillion dollar failure to do just that).
-- David Limbaugh, townhall.com, 1/5/07

COERCIVES: [The Liberal governmental] process is entirely one of Government telling people what to do. Liberalism is in fact coercive; therefore, let us [call] them what they are: Coercives. Let's no longer say, "We are against the Liberal health care plan." That makes us sound cheap & uncaring. Instead, we should say, "We are against this Coercive health control plan." That makes our opponents sound arrogant & dictatorial. Which they are. -- Jeffrey Payne, OpinionEditorials.com, 1/5/07

ACCOUNTABLE COLLEGES: As long as there are student grants and loans and scholarships to offset tuition costs, colleges will not have the incentive to streamline their offerings and keep costs down. If colleges are not held accountable for the relevancy of their course offerings, for the quality of their teaching, and for the success of their graduates, they will not have to be held to the same standards as other businesses that must satisfy a customer base. -- Nancy Salvato, opinioneditorials.com, 1/05/07

THE FEAR IS GONE: Has everyone forgotten what the world looked like when America (and Israel) was feared? Have the foreign policy castrati taken over? Does no one sing baritone anymore? The terrorists in Iraq, and among us, use fear as a primary tactic. We form study groups and issue statements saying we must "act wisely." Iraq's dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows to obliterate Israel and U.S. diplomats recommend we talk to him. Whatever happened to "if you touch us, it will be the last thing you touch"? Ah, but that was before political correctness and sensitivity training. Now, the only thing the thugs have to fear is fear itself. They certainly don't fear us. -- Cal Thomas, www.realpolitics.com, 12/05/06

ALL THE BLAME FOR DEFEAT: President Bush's policy had led to the best, most peace-loving Shiite leaders being predominant in Iraq; civil war will lead to the worst Shiites rising to leadership. ... Shortsighted, ignorant, or malicious "anti-war" Democrats misled the American people into thinking our war effort was a failure and was doing no good. The result is that now our war effort is failing, not because of President Bush, but specifically and directly because of the Democratic victory. ... From this moment on, if we come to defeat in Iraq, it will not be President Bush's fault. It will be, completely and exclusively, the fault of the Democratic Party. And it is the responsibility of the Democratic Party -- or at least the saner members of that party -- to speak up and do all they can to prevent that defeat. Here is the message that must be sent to the Iraqi people -- and to all the pro-democracy heroes in every nation in the Muslim world, who take their lives in their hands by standing against the Islamo-fascists: "America will not let you down." -- Orson Scott Card, www.ornery.org, 11/26/06

THE MYTH OF MIDDLE CLASS SECURITY: Three uncomfortable but incontrovertible facts about some of the most popular of the proposed government initiatives meant to provide more security for the middle class -- 1) Many, if not most governmental "security" programs simply don't work 2) Even the security programs that do work come with a steep, sometimes punishing economic cost, and 3) Any effort to assure economic security inevitably involves a loss of freedom. -- Michael Medved, townhall.com, 11/30/06

EURABIA A MYTH? Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica. The historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened -- even when the threat's concocted nonsense -- they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. -- Ralph Peters, New York Post, 11/26/06

DONE IN BY TOO MUCH: Rarely, we know, are civilization's suicides a result of the influence of too many of the poor rather than of the wealthy. -- Victor Davis Hanson, opinionjournal.com, 11/29/06

WHAT CHANGES? Members of Congress don't change Washington; Washington changes them. -- Cal Thomas, townhall.com, 11/29/2006

DEFANGING CORRUPTION: There is only one way to fight corruption in government and that's to scale down the scope of government and limit the control that politicians have over our lives and money. It's what the founders of this great country had in mind to begin with. -- Star Parker, townhall.com, 11/20/06

TOOTHLESS DIPLOMACY: Diplomacy without even the distant possibility of military action is impotent. North Korea is a perfect example of what multilateral diplomacy without a unilateral military option looks like. -- George Friedman, Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 10/10/06

IRRELIGION IS A RELIGION: The battle of ideas is not between religion on the one hand and bland neutrality on the other. It is between religion as exemplified by the Judeo-Christian tradition and another religion. It is not called a religion, but it has every characteristic. Call that other religion Political Correctness or the New Age. -- Maurine Proctor

DIRTY SECRET OF MORAL RELATIVITY: Here lies the hidden and dirty secret of a morally relative viewpoint. Once the sense of morality and right and wrong have been abandoned, people are ripe to be dominated by others exercising sheer will. If what ever a man does is no crime, "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." -- Maurine Proctor

A WAR ABOUT GOD: Most scholars agree that the cultural war that is raging comes down to this: What we think about God influences everything else. The essence of the culture war is the great rift over the issue of God. -- Maurine Proctor

AMERICAN SERVITUDE: [T]he founders of our nation were suspicious, if not contemptuous, of government... Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery. At least two-thirds of the federal budget represents forcing one American to serve the purposes of another. Younger workers are forced to pay for the prescriptions of older Americans; people who are not farmers are forced to serve those who are; nonpoor people are forced to serve poor people; and the general public is forced to serve corporations, college students and other special interests who have the ear of Congress... You say, 'Williams, don't you believe in helping your fellow man?' Yes, I do. I believe that reaching into one's own pockets to help his fellow man is both laudable and praiseworthy. Reaching into another's pockets to help his fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation. The bottom line: We love government because it enables us to accomplish things that if done privately would lead to arrest and imprisonment. -- Walter Williams

FOR YOU OR TO YOU: Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you. -- Albert Jay Nock

MORALITY IS KEY: Upon our material well-being must be built a superstructure of individual and national life in accordance with the laws of the highest morality, or else our prosperity itself will in the long run turn out a curse instead of a blessing. We should be both reverently thankful for what we have received, and earnestly bent upon turning it into a means of grace and not of destruction. -- Theodore Roosevelt

NO DIPLOMACY WITHOUT MUSCLE: The dustbin of history is littered with remains of those countries that relied on diplomacy to secure their freedom. We must never forget... in the final analysis... that it is our military, industrial and economic strength that offers the best guarantee of peace for America in times of danger. -- Ronald Reagan

ACRONYMIC ABOLITION STRATEGY: Given our monstrous, overgrown government structure, any three letters chosen at random would probably designate an agency or part of a department that could be profitably abolished. -- Milton Friedman

FREEDOM OF RELIGION, NOT FROM IT: It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping GOD in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship. -- John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

WHAT NOW?
What is clear is that the U.S. electorate has shifted away from supporting the Bush administration's conduct of the war. What is not clear at all is what they have shifted toward. -- George Friedman, Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 10/8/06

PROVE IT: Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn't mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased. -- Robert Kagan, Washingtonpost.com, 9/26/06

[The proof is in the numbers, and I don't think we have enough hard numbers to declare how the Iraq war affects the picture, for good or ill. Look at the terrorist headcount, for example -- who knows what it is? But we can make some assumptions... Subsequent attacks: 0. Increase in terrorist headcount: X. If subsequent attacks were, say 3, I think it is clear the terrorist headcount would be significantly greater than X, solely because the illusion of terrorist WINS is more attractive to potential recruits than terrorist LOSSES. People naturally gravitate to the winning side. I don't see evidence that terrorism has a winning side at this point. In terms of numbers, known or unknown, where is the evidence of increased threat? -- Kirt]

FIRST LADY? President Clinton lost his temper in an interview with Chris Wallace. He might not be the pleasant and polite first lady Hillary needs after all. -- Jay Leno

WHITEWASH THIS: The bottom line is that Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief, could not find the will to order the military into action against al Qaeda, and Bill Clinton, the head of the executive branch, could not find the will to order the CIA and FBI to act. No matter what the former president says on Fox, or anywhere else, that is his legacy in the war on terror. -- Byron York

WINNING TERRORIST STRATEGIES

Our enemies in the Middle East have learned three important ways to win the current war and those of the future.

1. Use terrorism on civilians to frighten them and to break down their resolve.. . .

2. Control the media to better distribute propaganda so as to further manipulate the civilian population and also lower morale of their troops. . . .

3. Infiltrate American schools, colleges and political organizations to retrain as many youth as possible so that new generations sympathize with the Middle East problems and regard their own country as an imperial nation, interested only in dominating the world to gain control of oil and other riches. . . .

There will be a fourth strategy added to the other three in the future. This will happen when the terrorists have access to nuclear bombs.

-- Lee Ellis, opinioneditorial.com, 9/25/06

EXTINGUISHING THE LIGHT: A Western civilization that will not recognize the essential role that Judaism and Christianity played in its development and will not defend its faith in these religions and the right of other faiths to exist unthreatened, will fall victim to the irrationality and violence of Islam, and the light of reason will be turned off. -- Alan Caruba

ARMAGEDDON TIMELINE: Here is what al Qaeda says they will do if they succeed in driving us out of Iraq: The terrorist Zawahiri has said that al Qaeda will proceed with "several incremental goals. The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of Caliphate . . . The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. And the fourth stage: . . . the clash with Israel." -- George W. Bush, whitehouse.gov, 9/9/06

SUCKER-PUNCHED AND HEADED FOR A KNOCK-OUT: The Democrats' mistake --ironically, in a year all about Mr. Bush -- is obsessing on Mr. Bush. They've been sucker-punched by their own animosity. "The Democrats now are incapable of answering a question on policy without mentioning Bush six times," says pollster Kellyanne Conway. . . . Mr. Bush's White House loves what the Democrats are doing. They want the focus on him. -- Peggy Noonan, opinionjournal.com, 9/15/06

COST OF ALLOWING A NUCLEAR IRAN: In the region, Persian Iran will immediately become the hegemonic power in the Arab Middle East. Today it is deterred from overt aggression against its neighbors by the threat of conventional retaliation. Against a nuclear Iran, such deterrence becomes far less credible. As its weak, non-nuclear Persian Gulf neighbors accommodate to it, jihadist Iran will gain control of the most strategic region on the globe.Then there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days. The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age. Every city in the civilized world will live under the specter of instant annihilation delivered either by missile or by terrorist. This from a country that has an official Death to America Day and has declared since Ayatollah Khomeini's ascension that Israel must be wiped off the map. -- Charles Krauthammer, townhall.com, 9/15/06

WAR-TIME POPULARITY: There has never been an unpopular winning war or a popular losing one. -- Peter Worthington

WHO IS DEADLIER? Of the two suicide cults America confronts, liberalism is by far the more lethal. -- Don Feder

FIGHT THE RIGHT ENEMY: On September 11, 2001, our guard was down. America vowed that morning that we would never let that happen again. And yet, after five years many of us have grown weary of maintaining our defenses. America is in danger of losing sight of the enemy. (Many of us already have.) We have become so distracted by the political fights over how to defend ourselves that we seem to have forgotten why we need to. Today would be a good time to stop bickering and remember that we are all Americans, and therefore all targeted by a resolute army of fanatical warriors. The enemy does not care if we are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, believer or atheist. It just wants us defeated. Polls report that more than a third of Americans, and nearly half of New Yorkers, believe that our own government either orchestrated the attacks or deliberately allowed them to happen. Such insanity can only be spread in a society that has lost its bearings. We must refocus on our common enemy: the Islamic radicals who want to establish their own despotic empire and view us as the most important obstacle in their path. America was attacked five years ago by agents of radical Islam. Their successors are fighting us in Iraq and Afghanistan and awaiting their chance to wound us again on our own soil. That is not a fantasy. It is the world in which we all live. Despite discouragements and setbacks, America can win this new and challenging war. But only if we fight the right enemy. -- The New Hampshire Union Leader

PATRIOTIC . . . NOT: [I]t's time to face a hard cold fact: Militant Islam wants to kill us just because we're alive and don't believe as they do... Now, this threat is not just going to go away because we choose to ignore it... But some Americans, sadly, are not interested in victory. And yet they want us to believe that their behavior is Patriotic. Well, it's not. -- Rush Limbaugh

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? Darwinism has freed our modern generation from faith. Humanity is purposeless. We're concoctions of impersonal forces in a meaningless universe. Just naked apes. Morality is out, ME is in, and there's no such thing as sin. So look how happy this godless philosophy has made us! The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. (Psalm 14:1) -- Don Martini, Let's Talk A Little Science, christinternational.org, 2004

HISTORY REPEATS: The parallels between the rise of fascism in pre-World War II Germany and the rise of Islamic fascism today are startling. And just as it was in the 1930's, the world is refusing to confront the growing danger. . . .So why is history repeating itself? Why can't we Americans wise up and see the Islamic fascist threat? I blame the news media first, and irresponsible politicians like Howard Dean second. . . . Americans are certainly entitled to debate the wisdom and effectiveness of the current campaign to defeat Islamic fascism, but defeat it we must. For if we don't, it is just a matter of time before more of us lie dead in the streets. Like Hitler and his evil ambitions of seven decades ago, the Jihadists of today are not going to stop until we make them stop. -- Bill O'Reilly, billoreilly.com, 9/7/06

BUSH AND LINCOLN

In April of 1861, in response to the firing on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days. Lincoln had greatly underestimated the challenge of preserving the Union. . . .

By the summer of 1862, with thousands of Americans already dead or wounded and the hopes of a quick resolution to the war all but abandoned, three political factions had emerged. There were those who thought the war was too hard and would have accepted defeat by negotiating the end of the United States by allowing the South to secede. Second were those who urged staying the course by muddling through with a cautious military policy and a desire to be "moderate and reasonable" about Southern property rights, including slavery. . . .

By late summer, 1862, Lincoln agonizingly concluded that a third faction had the right strategy for victory. This group's strategy demanded reorganizing everything as needed, intensifying the war, and bringing the full might of the industrial North to bear until the war was won. . . .

The first and greatest lesson of the last five years parallels what Lincoln came to understand. The dangers are greater, the enemy is more determined, and victory will be substantially harder than we had expected in the early days after the initial attack. Despite how painful it would prove to be, Lincoln chose the road to victory. President Bush today finds himself in precisely the same dilemma Lincoln faced 144 years ago.

-- Newt Gingrich, opinionjournal.com, 9/7/06

IRANIAN SNARE: Iran has set a clever trap, and the United States has walked into it. Rather than a functioning government in Iraq, it has chaos and a triumphant Shiite community. The Americans cannot contain the chaos, and they cannot simply withdraw. Therefore, we can understand why Bush insists on holding his position indefinitely. He has been maneuvered in such a manner that he -- or a successor -- has no real alternatives. -- George Friedman, Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 9/6/06

WHY WE'RE DOOMED: 1) We found highly enriched uranium in IRAN and 2) Iran still exists. -- Jerubaal, 9/2/06

NUCLEAR MAD NO MORE: The real threat posed by Islamic fascism comes in the form of a nuclear device in the hands of a terrorist surrogate. In the present case, the Cold War's deterrent doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) does not apply. A nuclear strike against the United States won't come in the form of a missile launch from silos on the other side of the world, or a submarine lurking off our shores. Rather, as a recent RAND study speculates, a nuclear terrorist attack against the U.S. will come from a cargo container aboard a freighter arrived in a U.S. port, or, alternately, transported across the porous southern border with the same mechanisms used to smuggle tens of thousands of illegal aliens every year. . . . For these reasons -- the nature of our enemy's threat and his determination to see our destruction -- the only applicable defense is the doctrine of pre-emption. . . . Our only strategic option and our best hope of averting a nuclear attack, though it's certainly no guarantee, is pre-emptive warfare against our enemies. -- Mark M. Alexander, townhall.com, 9/1/06

AMADINEJAD IS DEAD WRONG: God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism. -- Mahmud Amadi-Nejad

SOROS IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: The dominant position of the United States cannot be long maintained by a feel-good society that is unwilling to confront unpleasant realities. -- George Soros, The Age of Fallibility

THE GOP: It is a party of incredible ingratitude. . . . [But] at the end of the day, we have to stay with the Republicans. We have to stay with the Republicans because the Democrats are so bad. -- Bob Lonsberry, 9/1/06

COMMUNISM vs CAPITALISM: Often, when people evaluate capitalism, they evaluate a system that exists onEarth. When they evaluate communism, they are talking about a non-existent Utopia. What exists on Earth, with all of its problems and shortcomings, is always going to fail miserably when compared to a Utopia. The very attempt to achieve the utopian goals of communism requires the ruthless suppression of the individual and an attack on any institution that might compromise the loyalty ofthe individual to the state. That's why one of the first orders of business for communism, and those who support its ideas, is the attack on religion and the family. Rank nations according to whether they are closer to the capitalismend or the communism end of the economic spectrum. Then rank nations according to human rights protections. Finally, rank nations according to per capita income. Without question, citizens of those nations closer to capitalism enjoy a higher standard of living and a far greater measure of liberty than those in nations closer to communism. -- Walter Williams

WHAT'S THE USE? If a GOP Congress working with a Republican president fails to address immigration, many voters will question what exactly they are capable of accomplishing. -- John Fund

DEATH BY ATTRITION: Newsweek tries to stuff perhaps the biggest story of our time -- the sudden collapse of childbearing to below-replacement levels in virtually every free, democratic and affluent nation on this Earth -- into a happy tale of a new generation's lifestyle liberation from that old ugly 'social corset' of marriage and family... What lies beyond babies? Death. Death of the individual, and of his or her family. Death of the nation, tribe or culture that adopts a set of beliefs, practices and institutional arrangements that fail to respect and support generativity. -- Maggie Gallagher