AyesRight

Current Events Present Opportunity for Victory in War on Terror

2006-07-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

In January, I wrote a blog called A Bold Strategy for Dealing with Iran in which I argued that, since Iran is the world’s foremost terrorist state, the War on Terror will never be concluded until regime change occurs in that country. My suggestion was for the United States and Israel to openly ally in a military effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, decapitate its regime and destroy all of its concentrations of military formations. With Iran no longer a part of the equation, Syria would collapse and North Korea—as Libya did after Iraq and Afghanistan—would receive the stark message that we mean business.

My friends and classmates (including current general officers), who often shake their heads and chuckle at my conservative zeal, presented scores of good reasons why such a bold course posed problems: We are too bogged down in Iraq; the military is stretched too thinly; President Bush is too politically constrained; the world would disapprove; and so on and so forth. To which I responded that there is one overriding reason to do it: A nuclear explosion in a U.S. city, which is far more likely with a terrorist, nuclear-armed Iran than without one.

Taking the offensive against Iran and Syria in conjunction with the Israelis would have the additional benefit of eliminating the one legitimate point of comparison between Iraq and Vietnam: Iran and Syria represent one huge Ho Chi Minh Trail for the delivery of terrorist “insurgents,” IEDs, other weapons and political intrigue that put American troops and Iraqi self-determination at risk.

Now, with Israel launching a major offensive against the forces of evil along its borders, my Bold Strategy makes more sense than ever. The vaunted Arab Street is going to hold the United States responsible for Israel’s actions, so we have nothing more to lose there. The rest of the world is either too decadent to take measures that will ultimately save their citizens from a bleak future filled with terror or too intent on employing Iran and its fellow Islamofascists as counterweights to American power. So it it is up to us. Israel becomes a force multiplier for the United States and we maintain sufficient air power and overwhelming air superiority in the region to launch a shock and awe campaign that would make the prep work for Gulf Wars I and II look like child’s play. We already have boots on the ground and command and control infrastructure in the area, due to the commitment in Iraq.

Military action against Iran does carry the risk of alienating a population that is fed up with the mullahs, but that population is apparently incapable of turning that dissatisfaction into a regime-changing revolution. We lack the time (and probably the capability) to nurture such a rebellion.

Without the shortcut opportunity for victory that current events offer, the War on Terror will drag on for decades and unspeakable atrocities against American troops and civilians around the world, as well as against other innocents, are guaranteed, as is the escalating scale of atrocity. Waiting any longer only guarantees that the surrender lobby in the Democrat Party and the strength of leftist loonies in the decadent West will only gain power as the American people grow weary of yet another endless war pursued by the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury, when a Patton solution is required.

Now is the time to strike. America must join forces with our Israeli allies and end this madness once and for all.

Observations on Items in the News

2006-06-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

• There is absolutely no point in bemoaning the release of classified anti-terror programs by the media. The President can and should order the Attorney General to require reporters from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post to reveal their sources or sit in jail, as the liberals did to Judith Miller over the much-less-important Valerie Plame affair. Then the offending media and the traitors in government who leaked the secrets should be prosecuted for violating the espionage act. Let’s force a Constitutional issue on this one. Note that the Attorney General is seeking sources from San Francisco Chronicle reporters… on the baseball steroids story!

• If Congress has the power to fix the Supreme Court’s concerns over military tribunals, it should do so, post haste. Anyone, Democrat or Republican, who opposes such a fix should be targeted for defeat in their next election.

• What to do about the Supreme Court granting detained terrorists protection under the Geneva Convention is more problematic. Treaty-making powers are granted to the Senate. The executive branch, under the President, has war fighting powers as commander in chief. This ruling is troubling for two reasons: First, the terrorists do not abide by the Geneva Convention themselves; and second, the Court seems to have overstepped its authority. Electing Republicans who presumably will appoint conservative judges is one clear answer (that does not mean people like Lincoln Chafee or Arlen Specter). Another, less likely approach would be to impeach the offending justices. Finally, Congress should take a look at expanding checks on the judiciary branch of government, which would probably entail a Constitutional amendment.

Prosecute Media Publishers and Government Leakers of Classified Information

2006-06-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

I am not particularly upset at The New York Times and Los Angeles Times revealing the latest secret program for protecting the American people as we pursue the War on Terror. No, I am mad at President Bush and the wimps in Congress. The only way to stop this is to pursue the reporters and throw them in jail until they reveal their sources, the traitors within our intelligence community who are leaking classified information. Then the leakers need to be prosecuted. Moreover, they need to go after the news media reveal our secrets by charging them with a crime. If that means a Constitutional showdown, so be it.

The Democrats had no problem throwing The New York Times’ Judy Miller in jail over the trumped up Valerie Plame affair, so there is ample precedent. Bush isn’t going to win any kudos from the leftist media by ignoring their crimes, so what is there to lose?

The First Amendment is not absolute. Just as you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater, you shouldn’t be able to blab secrets during wartime, especially when your enemy is a bunch of terrorists bent on killing innocent Americans.

The Republican “led” Congress didn’t even see fit to name The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times in their toothless condemnation resolution. Big deal. But it is about what I've come to expect from Congress.

It is time to get tough with the traitors in government and the traitors in the media. Words and meaningless resolutions won’t cut it.

Congress and the President need to step up to the plate on this one and show some courage for a change. It’s the only way the security hemorrhage is going to stop.

Supreme Court Sides With Terrorists

2006-06-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court’s decision on military tribunals for captured terrorists is just one more good reason why the Culture War for America’s soul is important and must be pursued to its logical conclusion: A conservative court that sticks to the Constitution.

That means not usurping the President’s role as Commander in Chief and not extending the rights and protections afforded U.S. citizens to foreign murderers.

Congress should weigh in on the side of the President on this one. The War on Terror is a fight to the death and we need to stop treating it and the terrorists as just another “gotcha” excuse for Bush-hating politicians.

Non-uniformed illegal combatants who do not follow the Geneva Convention ought to have no protection under any law—national or international. They ought to be coerced into giving up whatever information they have before being executed. Period.

Old or New, WMDs Can Kill You Just the Same

2006-06-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

There are WMDs and then there are WMDs.

Apparently even the Bush Administration is parsing the differences in the wake of revelations by Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Peter Hoekstra that American forces have found 500 such weapons containing deadly chemicals such as mustard gas and Sarin, a nerve agent.

“These are from BEFORE the War with Iraq,” the naysayers chortle. “They are degraded to the point where they would be ineffective for their designed use and not a threat to U.S. forces in the 2003 invasion.”

Notice that nobody says how lethal these chemical WMDs remain. They just say they are “degraded,” whatever that means. They say they were not suitable for their intended use, presumably in artillery shells and missiles. What they don’t say is that, degraded though they may be, the chemicals are still extremely toxic to human beings and could be used to murder thousands, only not in the form of artillery shells or missile delivery systems. Oh, thank you; that makes me feel so much better.

Coming on the heels of reports that terrorists planned to kill Americans in New York subways using chemical and nerve agents, the existence of these “lost” WMDs (that were not declared by Saddam to the inspectors) is quite sobering.

We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, contrary to what the lying Democrats say. One of those reasons was to prevent Saddam’s WMDs from ending up in the hands of terrorists, to be used against us. We didn’t specify at the time that these WMDs had to be of a particular vintage. We didn’t say, Saddam, you can keep all your old, degraded WMDs, but give us all your new stockpiles and all will be hunky dory.

There is ample evidence—from Saddam’s own papers and recordings, as well as from observations of strange convoys headed to Syria during the lead-up to hostilities—not to mention Saddam’s use of WMDs against the Kurds and the cat and mouse game played with international inspectors, that some kind of mass killing devices existed in Iraq. Logically speaking, why in the world would Saddam risk his regime, his son’s lives and his own personal safety protecting weapons that didn’t exist?

I, for one, am grateful that these “degraded” WMDs are in the hands of American forces instead of Saddam or the Islamofascist insurgents. Moreover, I could care less if the WMDs are old or new; if they can kill us—and they can—what difference does it make?

The left is willing to let the chips fall where they may, as long as President Bush’s reputation and latitude as Commander in Chief are compromised. In other words, they are willing to put you and me at risk in order to hurt the man they call “The World’s Number One Terrorist.” The so-called mainstream media are fully complicit in this endeavor. That is why they continue to ignore any news or facts that do not fit their agenda and that is why they are actively undermining our ability to identify terrorists in this country and abroad with the various secret communications intercept and financial transaction oversight programs they have disclosed.

You may thank them when you or your loved ones are killed in a terrorist incident.

The REAL "Inconvenient Truth"

2006-06-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Two U.S. lawmakers cite declassified portions of an intelligence report which states that American troops have found some 500 chemical weapons (weapons of mass destruction, or WMD) and the next day none of the so-called mainstream media carries the story. In fact, aside from FOX News and a few internet sources (including opinion pieces by leftists dismissing the report out of hand), nobody appears to have touched the story.

Whether you believe Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Hoekstra or not, this is news. The fact that it has been completely ignored is proof positive of mainstream media bias against the war and against this president. After all, the Democrats’ central theme in their all-out assault on President Bush has been that he lied about WMDs and therefore the campaign in Iraq is illegitimate and should never have happened. The news media have reported that story to death. If they were honest and lived up to journalistic principles (what a contradiction in terms), they would be all over this revelation, as well.

The discovery of these WMDs was not a surprise to me. More than a year ago, I had received first-hand accounts from a U.S. Army Chemical Battalion my company adopted that they had found actual mobile weapons laboratories.

Leftist, Bush-hating bloggers will allege that this is just grandstanding by two Republican Members of Congress. They will say (without any proof whatsoever) that the munitions don’t count because they were degraded and probably leftovers from long before Gulf War II. Or they will simply ignore the news, as the so-called mainstream media has done, because it doesn’t fit their political bias.

The existence of WMDs and the media’s and Democrats’ thorough corruption are the real “Inconvenient Truth” Americans need to face.

Redeploy Murtha

2006-06-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

John Murtha (D, PA) is the poster child for term limits. Having served in Congress for more than 30 years, it is high time for his redeployment… to the pasture.

There comes a time in each person’s life when the little gray cells of the brain cease to function. In Murtha’s case, that occurred some time ago. But clearly, he is not the man he used to be.

The Democrats’ penchant for using “war heroes” with dubious records to somehow inoculate themselves against criticism is as shallow and callous as it is transparent. Murtha, like Kerry, is a phony warrior who does not support the troops. Both “heroes” have repeatedly insulted true American warriors by accusing them of all sorts of heinous crimes without any supporting evidence. They stand in the great tradition of Benedict Arnold.

I, for one, am sick and tired of mouthing the obligatory, “we thank you for your service,” to anti-military, out-of-touch cowards masquerading as representatives of the American people. Murtha and Kerry are cynical politicians whose sole motivation is power. They long ago gave up any claim to honor. Their betrayal of America’s fighting men and women and their eagerness to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory deserve only contempt.

The complete lack of logic… and seriousness… of their positions on the War on Terror is nothing short of dangerous. They and their ilk need to be redeployed as soon as possible.

Good Riddance, Dan

2006-06-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Justice is done. Dan Rather leaves CBS today “to pursue other interests,” as they say when people are forced out.

The veteran CBS blowhard, who helped make his name by insulting the first President Bush, went down with the ship over his phony “news” story denigrating the second President Bush’s National Guard Service during Vietnam. This so-called journalist deserves a Pulitzer Prize for living down to the ideals of today’s lying, plagiarizing, politically-motivated “newsmen,” from Jason Blair to Paul Krugman. He became the poster boy for journalistic misconduct when he stood by his guns long after the papers alleging misconduct on the part of Guardsman Bush were proven to be counterfeit and with the full knowledge that his main source was an unhinged partisan hack.

Thanks to Rather and his ilk, the so-called Mainstream Media are losing their clout; an army of fact-checking, lie-exposing bloggers are helping see to that.

Good riddance, Dan.

New York, New York

2006-06-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

My wife and I were in New York City with our daughter and her husband two weeks before 9/11. We were going to visit Windows on the World, atop the World Trade Center, where a friend of my daughter’s was to give us a tour, but had to cancel due to foul weather. We figured we could always catch it the next trip.

I remember checking in at the hotel; the desk clerk (inappropriately) volunteered, “You’re from Texas, like George Bush. We don’t like him here.”

“You’ll learn,” was my curt reply.

And learn, they did, at least for a while.

I was unaware at the time of our visit that my Newark-based flight attendant daughter had just been reassigned from the route she’d flown all that summer—United Flight 93—the one the passengers took down over Pennsylvania while fighting the terrorist-hijackers. My wife accompanied her on one of those flights using a buddy pass, so she could see our smiling daughter at work, charming the passengers as she saw to their needs.

President Bush’s high point with that opinionated desk clerk and, if voting records are accurate, probably was when he stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center beside that fire fighter and said, “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

But since then, a lot of New Yorkers seem to have lost their way. One would think that, as residents of the scene of the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil, New Yorkers would remember. One would think that they would understand the necessity of keeping terrorists on the run worldwide, killing them and denying them sanctuaries in new Afghanistans where they could plot the murder of more Americans. One would think that New Yorkers were as tough as their reputation.

Apparently not.

Perhaps the fault lies in their traditional liberal-left political orientation. For many of us, liberals and conservatives, 9/11 changed the world and changed our world view. Some, however, cling to their outmoded beliefs no matter what. They do not learn from history and thus are condemned to repeat it. After a suitable pause and a demonstration of solidarity after 9/11, they went right back to their old pre-9/11 ways and bought into the Democrat smear campaign against President Bush, regardless of its effect on the war.

Perhaps the fault lies in the leftist media, the nexus of which resides in New York, specifically at The New York Times. Again, after a suitable pause, the knives came out. A once-great newspaper, now sullied by scandal, gave up any pretense of objectivity in its relentless assault on the President and the War on Terror.

Perhaps the fault lies in the willful censorship of 9/11 by the so-called mainstream media, a media that is quick to show dead Iraqi civilians, yet denies us images of the most sobering event in U.S. and New York history. Video of 9/11 ought to be played on television stations around the country every single day, with special emphasis placed on those poor American souls who jumped from the Twin Towers rather than burn to death. It hasn’t been and won’t be, because those images reflect the truth of why we are fighting and the kind of evil we are up against, as opposed to the propaganda that the left wishes us to believe.

A number of great New Yorkers of all political persuasions, from former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, to “America’s Mayor,” Republican Rudi Giuliani, understand the stakes and the fact that the world has changed. Others—the likes of Sen. Schumer and Sen. Clinton (who at times seems to get it, but most of the time puts politics ahead of national security)—are less helpful to the cause.

Make no mistake. New York is a prime target of the terrorists. So are Washington, D.C., Houston, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, De Moines. We are all targets—Christians, Jews and yes, even Muslims. This is going to be a long war, because the radicals are numerous and even some of our so-called friends, such as the Saudis, are fueling that radicalism with their children’s textbooks, not to mention money and their own political corruption.

As the president is fond of saying, Iraq is but one theater in the global War on Terror. Those who refuse to see that, those who refuse to recognize the undeniable truth that supporters of terrorists are just as evil and guilty and dangerous as the terrorists themselves, are fools. And in their foolishness, in their mindless hatred for George W. Bush, they put all the rest of us at risk.

But it is for those New Yorkers who have forgotten what happened that September morning; it is for people like the “Jersey Girls” and Cindy Sheehan, who abuse their dead (and all our dead soldiers and civilians from 9/11 and its aftermath) as political pawns, for whom I reserve the most contempt.

The world has changed. But they still have your heads in the sand.

A New Low for the Enemy Media

2006-06-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Disgusting. Un-American. Treasonous.

Those are three of the printable thoughts I have about the Arizona Republic's outrageous cartoon shown here.

The newspaper has indicted and convicted U.S. Marines based on media and terrorist tales of a supposed massacre in Haditha, Iraq. Despite the fact that no trial has occurred and that publications such as TIME have had to run numerous corrections as a result of unverified, biased reports coming from questionable "witnesses." Others in the deviant media have followed current trends in shoddy journalism and run photos of the dead from an Islamofascist terrorist act, falsely suggesting they are from Haditha. The Arizona Republic has decided, for purely political purposes, that our Marines are guilty.

In my opinion, journalists now rank below whores and politicians when it comes to fairness and basic integrity. But what else can one expect from bigoted hatemongers?

Dems STILL Offer No Solutions

2006-06-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Higher taxes, political correctness, a unilateral halt to the War on Terror. That is what Democrats stand for. They may dissemble, backing and filling so as not to reveal their true nature, but that is what they really stand for. Oh, yes, and Bush hatred. Mustn’t forget that, for it is the overarching theme of all that they say and do.

They are the Party Without Ideas, so they resort to lies and personal attacks. Their only goal is power for power’s sake, not that they have a clue about what to do with it.

They want more of your and my money, so they can dole it out to others and therefore buy their votes. It doesn’t even matter if the votes they buy are cast by non-citizens, which is why they abhor voter identification. Anybody who will cast a vote for Democrats is more than welcome. In addition to illegal aliens, that includes convicted felons, people from other districts, the dead… it really doesn’t matter when the end justifies the means.

They want to stifle free speech, at least when it comes from conservatives. They themselves use the vilest language and images in their relentless effort to smear anyone who doesn’t agree with them, yet whine like banshees when the shoe is on the other foot. Of course, that is because Democrats know best—what’s best for the rest of us, mind you—while they are free to do as they please because they are so “progressive.”

They parade phony warriors—anyone with military credentials, either real or made up—to provide gravitas for their empty messages on national security. Yet, they never take that next step to tell us what the world (and the United States) might look like after they stop the war. Had we followed Murtha’s advice, al-Zarqawi would still be alive, murdering innocent men, women and children, sawing off people’s heads, killing his fellow Muslims. Stopping the war, on our side, at least, will only lead to more terror and bolder strikes against us. Relieve the pressure that is keeping Bin Laden holed up cowering in a cave and he will once again free to plot murderous attacks against Americans. Pull out of Iraq and let it go the way of Afghanistan under the Taliban, a haven for terrorists and a platform from which to launch operations against us. But the Democrats don’t look at consequences. They only want power. Power at any price.

Thankfully, the American people are wise at heart. Despite an occasional flirtation with Snake Oil salesmen, Americans know deep down that the Democrats are dangerously unserious about national security at a time when terrorists are seeking access to the worst imaginable weapons of mass destruction. Despite all the rhetoric, all the biased coverage by the leftist media, it is gut check time when you are in that voting booth. Even though images of 9/11 are censored and sanitized, lest they undermine the media’s version of the facts, people remember that day and what happened. They are not likely to vote to return to the days when we collectively hid our heads in the sand.

The Democrats can’t even see the forest for the trees, which is good news for Americans and good news for our country.

West Point Reunion

2006-06-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

I attended my 35th West Point reunion this past weekend and boy, are we getting old! Hard to believe that World War II was only 22 years over when I graduated from high school and I have now been out of college for 35 years!

One thing I had to tell my classmates who stayed in for a full 20 years or more was thanks for sticking with it. The Army was in pretty bad shape as a result of Vietnam when I went active the summer of ’71. There was an awful lot of bad leadership and it really turned me off. I got out as soon as my five-year commitment was up.

The guys who continued to serve did a wonderful job of reforming and rebuilding the Army into the formidable, well-led, all-volunteer force we have today. The troops were always good, as long as they had good leadership, even in the old draft days. But today, they are even better, thanks in large part to the excellent positive leadership being provided by the officers and NCOs. Thanks a lot to my classmates for making it so.

One thing that came through loud and clear, however, was that the Army is stretched pretty thin now, with many soldiers on their third or fourth tours in the war zone. There are fears that budgets will be cut back, no matter which party is in power, and that these funding reductions will be balanced on the backs of the soldiers, since it would be a disaster to cut our force levels.

I am a Rumsfeld fan. We need a leaner, meaner Army able to fight these kind of anti-terrorist wars, but that Army, however lean, has got to get bigger to take the pressure off the outstanding troops we have protecting us from the barbarians.

The highlight of the entire reunion, of course, was the fact that it started as we all received the news that our guys had gotten al-Zarqawi at last. Good riddance!

BUYING OFF HITLER

2006-06-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

Neville Chamberlain has become synonymous with appeaser. Of course, not too many people these days know who Neville Chamberlain was, nor do they know the definition of “appeaser.”

I am not sure exactly what old Neville gave up to gain der Fuhrer’s promise of “peace in our time,” but it sure wasn’t nuclear technology, which didn’t really exist in that time (1938 via the Munich Agreement, for you who don’t know history and are therefore condemned to repeat it---and what he gave up was the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia). I suppose if nuclear technology had existed, Neville would have given up that, too.

By 1939, Hitler had broken his solemn promise and invaded Poland. He later broke another solemn promise to ally with the Soviet Union by invading THAT country, as well. Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” brought us World War II.

Fast forward to 2006 and, according to the Associated Press, the United States has offered nuclear technology (and apparently Boeing aircraft parts so they can build their own jetliners for a NUCLEAR 9/11) in return for Iran agreeing to give up nuclear enrichment. The crazy Iranian president, whose name is a long-unintelligible jumble of letters that I refuse to look up out of lack of respect (so we’ll just call him Hitler-Lite) will in all likelihood tell us to take a flying leap. Of course, if he’s smart (and either he isn’t at all or he fully realizes how corruptly decadent the West has truly become) he’ll probably say “maybe” and then just continue to stall us as he builds up his nuclear arsenal.

The one person I don’t get in all of this is George W. Bush, our beloved president. I have supported him through thick and thin, through the dubious politics of sucking up to Teddy Kennedy, the Harriet Myers nomination, the Dubai Ports World mess and his bone-headedly stubborn refusal to see “la luz” when it comes to securing the borders BEFORE we discuss any kind of amnesty program for Mexican illegals. But now, I am not so sure. Say it ain’t so, George W! Please say it ain’t so.

Perhaps our president has been so beaten up and lame-ducked by the Enemy News Media and their EuroAmerican Democrat masters that he just doesn’t think he has the power politically to do the right thing and wipe Iran’s nuclear facilities AND its government off the face of the Earth. Non-nuclear air strikes on the scale of Gulf War I would probably do it. Perhaps the great Condi Rice is really just a Colin Powell in wolf’s clothing. Perhaps W has some secret plan. But, back to World War II: This is 1938 all over again!

Any idiot can see that. Go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington and look at all the signs that were so evident at the time but missed by the poor Jews who couldn’t believe such a thing could happen in their own country. Oh, yeah, according to President Hitler-Lite, THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST.

Listen to me, people:

Iran is a terrorist state. In fact, it is the WORLD’S NUMBER ONE TERRORIST STATE. They have threatened to destroy Israel and call us “The Great Satan,” remember? They are part of, if not the dominant player in, the AXIS OF EVIL.

We are in a war with ISLAMOFASCIST TERRORISTS who want to DESTROY US. IRAN IS THE LEADER OF THE NEW ISLAMIC REICH. The War on Terror ultimately goes through Teheran, just as World War II in Europe inevitably had to go through Berlin before it was finally over.

My God, what in the Hell is happening to us? If we go ahead with this madness, we might as well all turn in our Bibles for Korans (I refuse to use the Islamofascist spelling), start wrapping rags around our heads and dressing all our women in burkahs. It really is that serious.

If you don’t believe me, go back and read your history books. This is going to cost us a lot more casualties over the long run and there is absolutely no excuse for it. Not this time.

Throw the Bums Out!

2006-06-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

I, like many conservatives, am fed up with the Republican Congress, especially the Senate. Not the whole Congress, but those members who say they are Republicans but act like Democrats. On spending, support for the war, illegal immigration, many of our senators and representatives are elitists who are out of touch with their base. Even the President is out of touch on some issues, such as illegal immigration, but on the one big thing—the War—he has the right idea and that is all that matters. Not so with our RINOs in Congress.

However, instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I will be voting come November and I will be supporting many of those same RINOs. Not with money to the Republican National Committee, because I think they are in large part responsible for the RINOs’ existence in the first place, but I will vote Republican over Democrat in a New York minute. I will be holding my nose as I cast some ballots, but at the end of the day, the idea of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid running both houses of Congress makes me just want to throw up. We’ll all be at risk under that scenario—-at risk of higher taxes, more government control over our lives, and successful terrorist attacks after they abandon the War on Terror, which they will surely do.

But I do want to throw the bums out. Only not in the general election. The time to do that is in the primaries. We have to get rid of the Trent Lotts and Olympia Snowes. The Republican Party needs to field strong conservatives and tell the RINOs and clock-punching politicians who lack any ideology (or spine) to go out to pasture, where they will be in good company with all the cow patties.

We must remember the names of the weak sisters in our Party and cast them out the next time they are up for election. In the primaries, but cast them out, we must.

American Credibility Abroad

2006-05-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

To hear the Democrats tell it, the United States has lost credibility abroad, thanks to the Bush Administration and the War on Terror, specifically the Battle for Iraq. Let’s examine what that means.

First, it means that the United Nations is unhappy with us; first because we did the job they were supposed to do when Iraq repeatedly violated the truce terms from the first Gulf War. Not only did they do that, but in the Oil for Food Scandal, the UN and its leaders sucked at the trough of bribery, undermining its own resolutions for the sake of personal gain for a number of utterly corrupt individuals. Remember, the UN is the body that places murderous dictators in charge of protection of human rights, and does it with a straight face.

Second, it means Germany, France and Russia all sided against us in the run-up to war. Why? Because all three are duplicitous regimes who had been helping maintain the vicious Saddam Hussein and his thugs in power. All for the sake of money. Naturally, they opposed upsetting their little gravy train, no matter how many rape rooms and terrorists their complicity ultimately funded. All three are third-rate has-beens who are utterly unable to fix their own miserably failing economies. The French, for all their bluster, actually lied to Colin Powell in a masterful example of underhandedness. Their hollow core was exposed when they failed even to protect Paris against Muslims on the rampage.

Third, there is China. A repressive regime that looks out for itself; and what is good for China is to thwart the United States, or so they believe.

Fourth, there is the Muslim world. Right; they’re going to support us! They can’t even support their own people, are riddled with corruption and powerless against the religious extremists who are destroying the Islamic faith (and a lot of Muslims who don’t go along with the radical line in the process).

It ignores the support of Great Britain, Italy, Japan and numerous other countries, especially former vassals of the former Soviet Union, who have supported us and continue to do so.

The bottom line is, we were attacked on 9/11, not Germany, France, Russia, China or any of the other countries I have mentioned. We were charged with upholding the terms of the truce from the first Gulf War, only because the UN lacks the spine and the ability to do more than carp. We recognized that in order to destroy terrorism worldwide, we would have to take down the terror-supporting or enabling states. Iraq certainly qualified, as does Iran, Syria and a handful of other countries. Libya was one of those, but thanks to the War in Iraq, Libya changed its ways. Pakistan is now with us, at least on the governmental level, because they were given no choice after 9/11. Afghanistan is a place where the Taliban no longer roam freely. Our decision was based on an honest assessment of exactly what would protect America from another 9/11 or worse. It was the right one, and the rest of the world can go to hell as far as I am concerned. They lack the will and the courage to defend even themselves.

As for the Democrats, they launched an offensive that has borne fruit, largely because the President didn’t respond to the Democrats’ lies until it was too late and the damage among the sound-bite-attuned American people had already been done. But consider the outrageous behavior of the Democrats:

Many claimed the President was illegitimate, “selected, not elected,” even though the Democrats picked the worst possible standard bearers and even though both elections of President Bush were concluded exactly according to the Constitution.

After 9/11, the Democrats realized they couldn’t beat the President on ideas, because they don’t have any, so they resorted to character assassination, something they are very good at. From Screaming Howard Dean to Screaming Al Gore and their fellow travelers, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and the so-called mainstream media, they spread the most outlandish, vicious, craziest lies: From Bush knew about 9/11 in advance and did nothing to charges that he is undermining civil liberties by monitoring communication with terrorists. The list of complete fabrications stuns the mind.

I don’t know what will happen in the coming elections. I suspect that Republicans will lose the Senate and frankly, they deserve to, as weak as their so-called leadership has been. I don’t think Hillary or Al Gore or John Kerry will end up our president, but would almost hate to see John McCain in that office just as much. What I do know is that if we falter in this War on Terror, thousands more innocent Americans will die at the hands of terrorists—perhaps even tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions. That is for certain: Americans will die. And what do you think our credibility abroad will measure then?

McCain for President? Sorry!

2006-05-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

The ever-pandering John McCain has cast his lot with the biggest band of thugs, rapists, assassins and human rights violators ever to come down the pike. I am referring, of course, to the United Nations, which, like McCain, has called upon the United States to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay.

First, I resent being lectured by a bunch of crooked, lying murderers who wouldn’t know a human right if it hit them upside the head. And second, I resent being lectured by John McCain, who works so hard at being a maverick that he is beginning to look like James Garner.

McCain covers his wimpishness by saying, we ought to try them, execute them or release them. But this is the same John McCain who would outlaw not just torture, but degrading treatment of terrorist prisoners. He got a pass from me on that, only because he was a prisoner of war and knows firsthand the horror of torture. I disagree with him totally on that (and think we should be ripping out the fingernails of captured terrorists and then killing them when we have exacted every ounce of pain and information from them), but he gets a pass based on personal experience. As for Guantanamo, he gets a big, fat raspberry from me.

What, pray tell, does he really think we ought to do to people we have picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere for murder and mayhem against Americans, Jews and anyone (including fellow Muslims) who doesn’t agree with them?

These terrorists are not a party to the Geneva Convention, they don’t wear uniforms and they are indiscriminant in their use of violence. They deserve to be dead, but in our magnanimous humanity, we have chosen to keep them in an offshore prison. Not a one of them should go free until we are absolutely certain that they will not simply rejoin the terrorist cause. How do you make absolutely certain of that? You don’t. But as long as we are at war with their terrorist brethren, short of simply executing them, we must keep them in custody.

Despite my dislike for him, I have always given McCain his due for sticking to his support for the War on Terror, but this latest piece of foolishness leads me to believe he has a weak stomach for dealing with the real issues confronting civilized humanity in an age of terror. That would not serve him in good stead were he to run for President, much less occupy the office.

Steroids vs. National Security?

2006-05-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with this picture?

The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzalez, has approved subpoenas to require The San Francisco Chronicle and two of its reporters to reveal their sources for secret federal grand jury transcripts on sports stars using steroids.

Why is the Attorney General worrying about steroids? With a war on, and rogue CIA bureaucrats leaking extremely sensitive secrets concerning our rendition program for terrorists, telephone intercepts and other programs that are protecting American lives, why is he not pursuing those reporters and those leaks? After all, it was the liberals who sought and got a special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame fiasco, and they threw The New York Times’s Judy Miller in jail in that case. How are Valerie Plame or baseball stars on steroids more deserving of the Attorney General’s time and efforts than those who would undermine our troops and the War on Terror?

I have stuck with President Bush through thick and thin, even when I thought he was foolish for allowing the Democrats to tell the most awful lies about him without mounting an aggressive campaign to counter those efforts. I stuck with him, reluctantly, on the Dubai Ports World imbroglio, and I have stuck with him despite his completely clueless position on illegal immigration.

But enough is enough.

National security (that means the security of me and my family) is at stake and it is the Attorney General’s duty (and the President’s to ensure that he takes that duty seriously) to plug the leaks that are putting us at risk.

So, I don’t appreciate it when he bulldogs an issue like over-muscled cheating athletes, but ignores far more serious violations of the nation’s intelligence laws when we are at war.

Alberto, do your job! Mr. President, do yours!

Show Your Appreciation To Our Military Men and Women

2006-05-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

May is Military Appreciation Month, or so my favorite radio station says. It is a great idea to take Memorial Day and extend it for a full month. For that matter, it ought to be 365 days a year.

Here are some things we all can and should do to show our troops that we really do support them:

If you are flying first class and a uniformed member of our armed forces boards the plane, give up your seat. He or she has given up a lot more protecting us.

If you happen to pass a service member on the street or at an airport, stop and shake the trooper’s hand, tell him or her thanks, say you appreciate the fact that they are protecting us here at home.

If you spot a military person at a restaurant, call the waiter over and say you’ll pick up the service member’s meal tab. I like to do this anonymously—first, because I am uncomfortable with being the object of gratitude from a person who has put his life on the line for me; and second, because if it is anonymous, it doesn’t put the military person on the spot and if his benefactor does not have a face, it becomes a gesture of appreciation from everyman. You will be surprised at the number of times this little gesture of appreciation sets off a light bulb in the mind of a restaurant owner. I remember after saying I would pay the tab of a big Marine sergeant in a soul food restaurant how the owner said he wanted to pick up half. I’ll bet that restaurant owner comps a soldier more than once in the future.

If you know of the family of a deployed military person in your area, see if they need help. Many people in the National Guard and Reserves take a pay cut when they serve their country and could use some help for their families. And believe me, as the son of a career Army officer, I know that family members of our men and women in uniform sacrifice just as much as their father, mother, sister or brother in the service does.

Adopt a deployed trooper. Better yet, get your company to adopt a unit. Where I work, we have adopted a number of units since 9/11 and it has been as good for us, in terms of team-building, just as much as it has been for the military folks to whom we’ve sent care packages. Individual employees buy all the items and the company, God bless it, pays the postage. As a result of this program, we have been able to meet some of the finest people on the planet and learn of their trials and tribulations in such a way that the war becomes much more real to us back at home. They are pretty magnificent, by the way. They make you proud to be an American. How do you find a unit to adopt? Ask around. You are sure to run into someone with a friend or relative in the service in Iraq or Afghanistan… or anywhere, for that matter. You need a contact who is willing to accept packages, and that is the way we’ve done it.

Help a wounded veteran. I remember buying tickets to my favorite country-western performer at a charity auction. I was all primed and ready to see him perform live, when my wife said, why don’t we give the tickets to a policeman or a soldier. She was right. I got in touch with the local Veterans Administration hospital and they have an office set up to accommodate just such an arrangement. Giving up something I wanted made it all the more sweet, because it was a personal sacrifice. A very small one, to be sure, compared to what the wounded veteran gave up for all of us.

Those are some suggestions. I am sure you can think of others. In showing support for the troops, you will be boosting their morale. And it will make you feel good inside because you will be doing something concrete to support the war effort.

Americans Want a Tougher Stand on Illegal Immigration

2006-05-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Everything is secondary to the War on Terror, so I won’t be breaking with President Bush over his day-late-dollar-short plan for dealing with illegal immigration. But I think he is wrong. In fact, I would venture to say that his base thinks he’s wrong on this issue and I suspect the majority of Americans think so, too.

We don’t trust politicians, be they Democrats or Republicans, to deal forthrightly and decisively with illegal immigration. Instead, we get a lot of lip service. The bottom line for us is, secure the border first, then we’ll talk about everything else. But secure it first.

That doesn’t mean sending down 6,000 or so National Guard troops to pull support duty (no interdiction allowed) for the beleaguered Border Patrol. We ought to be employing the military-—active duty, as well as the Guard and Reserves—-along both the Mexican and Canadian borders right now. And their mission should be active and clearly defined: Guard the border; stop and apprehend any groups or individuals trying to cross it illegally. Sure, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the military from engaging in law enforcement activities within the United States. If this Reconstruction-era law applies in the case of border security, we should change that statute. After all, the ultimate duty of the armed forces is to protect the country from invasion. With a war on and reports of Islamic radicals trying to cross over from Mexico as well as Canada, it takes little stretching of the imagination to determine that the military needs to be involved.

We need a security fence. A similar fence is working in Israel, just as the one built to keep East Germans and Czechs inside the Iron Curtain worked when I was with the U.S. Army on border patrol in the mid-‘70s. A barrier system will work here, as well. Coupled with passive detection devices, listening and observation posts and patrols, it can drastically reduce the number of illegals entering this country.

We need tougher penalties for border jumpers. Instead of turning them loose, we should arrest them, put them on trial and assign them to construction details upon conviction. They can build the very fence that will keep them out. That would be a good use of taxpayer money. Not to mention poetic justice.

Finally, we need to hold U.S. firms accountable for hiring illegals, so that we can dry up any incentive for illegals to come here in the first place. We need to amend U.S. anti-discrimination laws that send mixed messages to American companies, indicating that if they profile people based on race or national origin, based their having an invalid Social Security number, they can be prosecuted on civil rights grounds. And we need to start withholding federal funds from states and cities (such as my hometown of Houston) whose police are prohibited from enforcing immigration laws.

Once we have plugged our leaky borders, then we can talk about what to do about the illegals who are already here. Anything is on the table for discussion, from amnesty to guest worker programs to court-testing the citizenship claims of children born in this country to illegal aliens—-but only after the borders are secure.

At the end of the day, the president’s position on illegal immigration is not likely to persuade conservative voters to go for a Democrat Congress or any of the likely Democrat presidential contenders on the horizon today (especially if it is Hillary). But, still, President Bush ought to get on the right side of this issue. The American people are telling the president and the Congress quite plainly that they want a border solution first and talks on all the ancillary issues later. It is a reasonable position and he should give it greater thought.

As for the Congress, it is there where Republican-lites (on immigration as well as a lot of other issues) are likely to find the conservative base has deserted them. Other than the fact that the hate-crazed Democrats will in all likelihood try to impeach President Bush if they gain control, most of us don’t see the difference between an Arlen Specter and some liberal Democrat. There are a lot of RINOs out there for whom our patience is gone. Trent Lott, Lindsay Graham and the more obvious goofballs such as Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee, take note.

Time for Political Realignment? You Bet.

2006-05-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

If things don’t change and change soon, Republicans are going to lose the Senate, be weakened in the House and Democrats will pursue their crazed, irrational hate campaign against President Bush to the impeachment stage, on the most bogus of grounds. Welcome to the United States of America circa 2006.

I am pretty disgusted with the entire Congress, Democrats certainly, but Republicans as well. They can’t stick together; they can’t lead; they lack the courage of their convictions; they allow the Democrats to lie and insult our soldiers again and again without consequences; and they run for the hills rather than back their wartime president.

I am sick of the pandering. Republicans’ laughable $100 payoff to consumers to somehow make up for higher gasoline prices was absolutely despicable. The same goes for their calls on the oil and gas industry to re-invest in new production, when they know that is precisely what the industry is doing already. Ditto their phony charges of oil industry gouging.

I don’t want the Democrats in control, but with this bunch of Republicans, there isn’t much difference between the two, except that Republicans (for now, at least) won’t go for impeachment.

What we probably need is a dramatic political realignment in this country, and not along Democrat and Republican lines. We could take the pro-war Democrats and the pro-war Republicans and people on all sides who exercise fiscal restraint and believe in individual liberties and an end to political correctness and put them all together in one big Pro-America Party. The leftists, mainstream media whores, Cindy Sheehans and Michael Moores, not to mention the Kennedys, Clintons, Durbins and such could all join forces under the Anti-American Party banner. Weak-kneed pseudo-Republicans who don’t truly believe in free enterprise, such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert (one of the biggest panderers when it comes to energy) could go with the Anti-American set.

There are a lot of big issues on the table and I am afraid it is high time we rearranged things along more practical lines. Who is going to keep us safe from terrorists? Who is going to keep the economy strong? Who is going to keep the food Nazis and political correctness Nazis at bay? Who is going to insist that the mainstream media clean up its act and just be honest? Not the current bunch.

Am I alone? I think not. The Congress has even lower approval ratings than the president, and people are deserting the mainstream media in droves. Americans can recognize a stinker when they smell it. And Congress and the media certainly stink to high heaven.

Reining In CIA, State Department Freelancers

2006-05-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

I don’t know much about outgoing CIA chief Porter Goss or National Security Agency Director John Negroponte or even Gen. Michael V. Hayden, whose name has been floated as the likely nominee for the CIA post, but I do know this: The CIA is in need of a thorough shake-up and housecleaning. As is the State Department.

Right now, we have two opposing forces calling the shots in both organizations; the duly elected president, who is entrusted by our system (and the voters) with policymaking powers, and a bunch of bureaucrat holdovers with a political agenda who seem hell-bent on undermining the president and freelancing in pursuit of their own objectives. No matter where you stand on the Bush Administration, it ought to give you serious pause to know that rogue elements within the CIA and U.S. Department of State are conducting their own private intelligence and diplomatic activity. That is not the way things are supposed to work and it’s dangerous in today’s world.

In addition to a thorough housecleaning, both organizations need operating guidelines and accountability along the lines of the military, which is governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Under the military system, service members are required by law to carry out the legal orders of their commander in chief. They can be prosecuted if they fail to do so. Moreover, the UCMJ, various codes of conduct and the historical subordination of the military to the civilian government have helped create a system of ethical behavior in the armed forces that would discourage the sort of political gamesmanship now being practiced within certain quarters of the CIA and State Department.

Weak-Willed Jurors Got It Dead Wrong on Moussaoui

2006-05-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

We are not supposed to question the jury system. But in a nation where moral relativism prevails and some juries refuse to follow the law, a process known as “jury nullification,” I think it is safe to say that change is needed. Which brings me to the sentencing decision in the only trial of a 9/11 hijacker, the completely, defiantly unrepentant Zacarias Moussaoui.

He should have been executed. If you have read my blog, I believe his execution should have been accomplished in such a way as to defile his soul, according to the Muslim belief, and broadcast to the world to show that this is what we do to terrorists. Instead, the jury showed a complete lack of intestinal fortitude. They acted like Europeans, rather than Americans. They were moral relativists. They were cowards.

My only hope is that Moussaoui meets his proper fate in prison. That fate is death.

As for the jury, you have just struck another blow for the destruction of America and our way of life and the murder of your fellow citizens, and I use the term loosely in your case, in the future. Shame on you.

Time for President Bush to Take the Offensive

2006-04-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

With President Bush’s poll numbers languishing in the 30th percentile, sharks of all kinds smell blood in the water. Democrats and the media will, of course, continue to try to fatally wound this presidency, using lies, half-truths and specious arguments. Republican cowards, too timid to lead, too afraid of the next election, will continue to waffle, avoid confrontation with the Democrats and distance themselves from the president. And people like me, who have supported President Bush through thick and thin, will wonder at the lack of engagement by this White House that has taken us to this point and whether the situation is still salvageable.

The War on Terror, with campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a new front that needs to be opened in Iran and Syria, is the most important issue of our age. President Bush has had the right idea from the beginning, but his complete lack of engagement in confronting the lies being spread by Democrats and the media has ceded the field to the dissemblers. Repeated enough, without contradiction, the canard that “Bush Lied, Thousands Died” has taken root in the American consciousness. The Democrats have never been told to put up or shut up when it comes to formulating a coherent policy on the War on Terror. “We will do better” is not a policy, it is an empty promise. Yet, that empty promise has been allowed to take on the semblance of strategy. As a result, continuation of the War on Terror is now threatened, which means that all of us are at greater risk of becoming victims. That is completely unacceptable.

Also unacceptable is that the meaningless dialogue with Iran should continue. That country is a fascist state and has made no bones about its nuclear ambitions, as well as its intent to destroy Israel and kill Americans. They have met every overture with threats. We should believe them. Their nuclear program must be destroyed, but so must their regime. Otherwise, a nuclear device will surely go off in an American city, sooner rather than later. That must be prevented at all costs. We must be prepared to do anything, absolutely anything, to eliminate the threat, including preemption employing our own nuclear weapons if necessary.

Rogue elements in the CIA who have disclosed classified information about secret prisons for terrorists and the communications intercept program need to be ferreted out and prosecuted for treason. The media who have published that classified information should be forced to reveal their sources and punished as well. We are at war and their subversion is undermining the war effort, killing our troops and making us all more vulnerable. The First Amendment should remain intact, but those who violate the law in leaking or publishing classified material should face dire consequences, including jail time. Locking up reporters and editors for telling the enemy our secrets does not violate the First Amendment. Why hasn’t the Justice Department moved on this? There is no excuse for this inaction, and the buck should stop at the president’s desk.

Five years after 9/11, our borders remain porous. Reports are that people of Middle Eastern descent have crossed into the United States from Mexico. One would be surprised if they have not. The same goes for Canada. We must stop illegal immigration now. The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to illegal immigration and want it ended. Thousands of illegals protest and our politicians and the media want to give them equal standing with American citizens when it comes to immigration policy. That is an affront to our Constitution and to all citizens. Both parties and the president himself are completely tone deaf on this issue. Stop illegal immigration first. Seal the borders. Prosecute those who hire illegals. Enforce the law and require cities and states that receive federal funding (that means all cities and states) to enforce it as well. Deport illegal aliens and provide prison terms for repeat offenders. Then, and only then, can we talk about amnesty or guest worker programs. Our politicians, ever the panderers, are 100 percent out of step with the American people on this issue and it is time they were held to account.

All of these issues relate to national security. Take action, Mr. President, and the people will follow you. But you must be engaged.

Energy Price Shock Is Our Own Damn Fault

2006-04-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

Want to know why gasoline prices are so high? Look in the mirror.

This country has failed to confront the energy issue for more than 30 years, despite repeated warnings starting with the 1973 OPEC embargo right up to the present.

Misguided environmental laws have prevented any new refineries from being built over that period, and special gasoline blends for different regions of the country make it impossible to alleviate shortages in one area by shipping in fuel from another. Our refineries, which produce gasoline and other petrochemicals are running full out and still can’t keep up with demand.

We cannot drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuse, we can’t drill off the West Coast, the East Coast or the Coast of Florida.

We can’t use nuclear power.

Even at today’s prices, American energy is so cheap by world standards it keeps any alternatives off the market.

Higher oil and gas and gasoline prices are here to stay, and likely to climb only higher as our dependence on OPEC continues to grow in a world where supply disruptions are just a terrorist bomb away.

Moreover, we are competing with new drivers and energy users in China, India and other rapidly industrializing countries.

Congress’s solution: Investigate the oil companies; trump up charges of gouging; perhaps pass a new Windfall Profit Tax. The result will be even less drilling as investment dollars are siphoned out of the hands of drillers and into the pockets of government. Then they can sit around and still do nothing, smug in the knowledge that they have shifted the blame once again.

Higher gasoline prices? You asked for it. You got it.

Prosecute CIA Rogues, Mr. President

2006-04-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Rogue CIA agent Mary McCarthy, who revealed highly classified information to the press, needs to be prosecuted and sent to prison. If the Bush Administration fails to do so, for whatever reason, it is not fulfilling its responsibilities in time of war.

Moreover, we need to get to the bottom of a highly politicized CIA and State Department, in which rogue employees feel free to undermine national security and the policies of a duly elected president. I would favor making them subject to something akin to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so that failure to carry out the legitimate orders and policies of their Commander in Chief would be a criminal offense.

If special prosecutors can investigate Scooter Libby for revealing the name of a non-covert CIA agent who was actively engaged in undermining presidential directives, when outing Valerie Plame was not even a crime, then surely releasing classified information to the media that could harm our troops and our country in time of war is a much more serious offense, deserving of trial and punishment.

The Justice Department absolutely must pursue this case, if need be, to the ends of the Earth. It is up to President Bush to ensure that it happens. We also ought to take a look at punishment for news media that publish classified material. That should not be protected under the First Amendment.

The Rumsfeld Gambit

2006-04-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

The current attacks on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are nothing more than the full-court press of Democrat politics, the politics of personal destruction. They have been at this since even before 9/11, though now they try to put their criticism in terms of mismanaging the war.

It is pure politics. The roots go back to the first election, which Democrats tried to steal by “imputing” voter intent on unmarked or improperly marked ballots. Gore lost even his own state and the statewide recount conducted by Florida newspapers confirmed that Bush won, but the Democrats felt they were entitled to the election because they are so much smarter than the rest of us poor, dumb, slobs, so they tried to steal it. The Constitution be damned, they immediately sought to overturn the legitimate results and almost succeeded with the Democrat-stacked Florida Supreme Court until the United States Supreme Court stepped in and did their Constitutional duty. That gave rise to the “selected, not elected” rhetoric. Oh, how the Democrats love their rhyming media sound bites.

Then in 2004 they ran an equally lousy candidate in the form of Vietnam War liar John Kerry, a man people like me remember for exactly what he was toward the end of that conflict: Benedict Arnold. Again, the Democrats felt entitled to that election, the Constitution be damned. So they decided to do the only thing they can do since they have no positive ideas themselves, which was to go negative. Another Democrat specialty. Make Bush illegitimate, call for his impeachment, paint the War on Terror and the campaign in Iraq in the worst possible light, criminalize politics, defeat any voter ID laws (so they can register illegals and ineligible voters, which is the ONLY reason to oppose voter ID cards), disclose classified information, create the false impression (knowingly false) that Bush lied about Iraq (when all intelligence services and the Democrats themselves ALL believed the same intelligence), etc., etc., etc.

Now, the target is Rumsfeld. He may be a taskmaster and abrasive, but he is trying to change the military and that is a very tall order (and a very necessary thing). The entrenched establishment doesn’t like it. There are probably scores more generals who resent what they view as his interference. But civilian control of the military is one vital element of our democracy. And just because someone has stars on his shoulders doesn’t make him a genius or automatically right. Take Weasley Clark (misspelling INTENTIONAL), for example. Just as in any other profession, there are good generals and bad, and some good generals when it comes to generalship who would be bad politicians and bad policy makers. The military needs to be transformed to be able to fight the next war, not the last one, and that is what Rumsfeld is doing. That has ruffled a lot of feathers within the officer corps. Our military is magnificent, but it can and does get hidebound. And many retired generals are ambitious folks to whom a career in politics, or punditry, looks attractive.

Of course, the entire Rumsfeld episode is just another political maneuver to make Bush look bad. It is the only thing the Democrats have, because they have no ideas and offer none, other than “we can do better,” which is an easy thing to say if you don’t have to come up with specifics. They cannot take a position because it will alienate one or the other segment of their base, so all they do is chip away, using negatives. But negatives alone do not a national defense strategy make.

Bush is not without blame. He did not engage and, in fact, ceded the field to the political enemy a long time ago. He allowed the Dems to lie without contradiction, without fighting back, without telling his side, and most certainly without calling a spade a spade when it comes to outright lying, as so many Democrats have done.

Politics is a big part of the president’s job. I give him a big, fat “F“ in politics, and resent the fact that his failure in this area threatens the war effort and has left the impression that the war is going badly (it is not) and that we are in the wrong place (we are not) and that it is hopeless (it is not). The war will be long and difficult and will involve other theaters after Iraq. Iran, for starters. We need to take them down militarily, and not just their nukes, but the regime itself. Syria needs the same treatment. Saudi Arabia must be forced to change its ways (by threat, but we won’t have to use military action there, for they are as decadent as the Euros). Those are the main players who need to change. Plus North Korea.

We have to keep our eye on the ball. Bush’s POLITICAL failure puts all that at risk. Still, he is the only sheriff out there who also has the right idea when it comes to the economy, which is booming, despite the war, precisely because more revenues are generated from tax cuts than tax increases. He is doing great on the economy. Only the Democrats and their mass media stooges won't acknowledge the fact. He is the only one (except perhaps Cheney) who will pursue the war with full vigor and still run a reasonably conservative economy (though spending is too high because he has failed to use his veto power). Rudi Giuliani would make a good president because he is a sheriff, too, as is McCain and Condi Rice.

I am not a big McCain fan because I believe he works too hard at playing the Maverick for purely political gain and therefore has no true convictions outside of favoring and understanding the war. I think he is wrong in opposing torture or humiliation tactics used against detained terrorists, but, given his background, he gets a pass on that. But he is a sheriff and that is what we need in the next president. We must continue to pursue the War on Terror to a successful conclusion, and if that means killing every radical Muslim neo-Nazi out there, then so be it.

The challenge of our age, the one thing that trumps all else, is the War on Terror, of which Iraq is but one battlefield. Instead of censoring footage of 9/11, we should be seeing it morning, noon and night on our television screens. Americans have notoriously short attention spans, and we must remember what was done to us that September morning five short years ago. We have to keep our eye on the prize and our mind on the consequences of not confronting and defeating Islamofascism.

The Democrats are ready and willing to put us all at risk, and to lie and trash good men and women and jeopardize the lives of American servicemen and women, all in the name of politics. They cannot be allowed to succeed.

Just Punishment for Islamic Terrorists

2006-04-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

Call me sentimental. But I would give Zacarias Moussaoui the martyrdom he requests, only with a few changes as to the manner of execution.

First, I would make his last meal pork-based. Pure pork. I would tell him it was lamb until after he finished and then show him the cuts of meat from which it was taken. Show him the journey of his pork from barnyard to slaughterhouse to kitchen to his plate.

Then, instead of a firing squad or lethal injection, I would feed him to ravenous hogs. Let them eat him alive. Let him die knowing that instead of meeting a bunch of virgins with hair under their arms, he has a date with the Devil. His soul will be forever damned.

I would make videos of the final meal's preparation and consumption. And, of course, of the hog feeding. I would distribute these throughout the Muslim world, underscoring the fact that from here on out, the bodies of terrorist pigs will be treated accordingly. And I would carry out that threat. In spades.

I have been saying for a long, long time, that we need to get more brutal, more forceful, in pursuing the War on Terror. That is my only real complaint with the Bush Administration. I understand why they are trying to walk a thin line and not upset all Muslims, but I don’t agree. I believe this is a fight to the death with worthless dregs who need to die in the most painful way possible, with no hope of redemption, or virgins, or anything in the afterlife except perpetual damnation. And their fellow Muslims should be scared witless (I don’t really mean “witless”) of confronting the American juggernaut.

One of these days, another terrorist will get through our defenses. With the right weapons in hand (and, rest assured, Iran is working on that right now), they will kill tens of thousands of us, if not millions. Eventually, we will get the message and come down with everything we’ve got: nukes (strategic as well as tactical); nerve agents; biological weapons... and we will exact revenge not only on the terrorists and the governments that support them, but on the people of the Muslim world who have not policed their own house. And probably on North Korea, too, just for grins.

I hate to see it come to that, mainly because of my countrymen will die, but also because many more ordinary Muslims will perish in the fury of our response. Better to brutalize the terrorists now, before they have a chance to strike our homeland again. But, I don’t think we have it in us to do that. Not yet, anyway. But that time will come.

Mark my words; that time will come.

Meanwhile, think pork!

America Needs Blunt Reminders of 9/11

2006-04-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

So, America isn’t ready for a movie about United Flight 93, the 9/11 jetliner whose passengers fought the hijackers, leading to the crash in a Pennsylvania field. It seems trailers for the new film were pulled after negative audience reactions since some believe the film comes “too soon” after the terrorist attacks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12112802/site/newsweek/

My eldest daughter Julie was a flight attendant on United 93 up until a couple of weeks before that fateful day. She knew the entire crew, with the exception of the young woman flight attendant who took her place. When I watched the second plane, a United airliner, hit the second WTC tower, my first reaction was to call Julie, who was based in Newark. I got voicemail.

It wasn’t until later that day that we found out she was alive and well, grounded at a hotel in Southern California. The entire issue of the War on Terror for me is bound up in the certain knowledge as to just how close to the bone global terror is for all of us. I am 100 percent committed to getting not only the bastards who did this, but also all the states in the world who continue to aid and abet terrorism, regardless of whether they were directly involved in 9/11. I was and remain all for the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I sincerely hope Iran is next. And Syria. And anyone else who thinks they can plot against my people and get away with it. That is also why I have such contempt for Democrats who view the most vital national security issue of our day, if not in our nation’s history as an opportunity to play politics. It is why I am so thoroughly disgusted with a dishonest national media that lies, distorts and only tells the side of the story that supports its own phony version of reality.

I communicate directly with soldiers and Marines, because I support them with e-mails and packages, unlike the leftists who claim to support the troops while doing everything they can to undermine their mission and discredit the military.

I haven’t seen the United Flight 93 film or the trailer, but I know that it is nowhere near too soon for us to be reminded of the evil that was committed on 9/11, the barbarous nature of the enemy we face and the absolute need we have to prevail in the War on Terror. If I had my way, television stations across America would show the actual footage of 9/11, with the planes hitting the buildings and the towers collapsing, three or four times a day, every day, 365 days a year. For those who don’t understand the stakes, I would make readily available the horrible footage of hostages getting their heads sawed off by Islamic terrorists (I have not watched this footage, because I don’t need to; I know exactly what we are up against).

The biggest mistake our nation has made in the aftermath of 9/11 is not Iraq, or the war plans for that campaign, or the post-victory strategy. The biggest mistake we made was in sweeping the images of 9/11 under the rug, so as not to traumatize our delicate sensibilities. We need to be reminded, as graphically as possible, the cost of appeasement or inaction or restraint in what ought to be an all-out, vengeful, bloody attack on terrorists the world over and their state sponsors.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS A NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE

2006-03-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

What just about everyone—including The Wall Street Journal—seems to be getting wrong about the illegal immigration issue is that, post-911, it has everything to do with national security.

Even the Journal, in its March 31 editorial, pulls the race card, suggesting that the GOP is losing its ties to Ronald Reagan as it moves toward Tom Tancredo on the issue of illegal immigration. This has nothing to do with our immigrant tradition and the vaunted “shining city on a hill.” We are being invaded, and unless we take immediate steps to stop it, one day a terrorist is going to slip through and create a “shining city,” only it will be due to radiation.

The American people want our borders sealed. We can debate the merits of a guest worker program, or amnesty, or criminalizing illegal immigration, or going after employers, but a necessary first step is to stop the bleeding. And that means a barrier and effective interdiction.

There is plenty of room for demagoguery by politicians of all stripes, without The Wall Street Journal presuming to lecture us on civil rights.

GET BIN LADEN

2006-03-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

So, the Democrats have finally come up with a plan, a platform for national security: Get bin Laden.

One awaits the rest of their party platform with baited breath. Here’s a preview:

Cure cancer;

End world hunger;

Achieve peace in the Middle East;

Develop an inexhaustible, free energy source that actually improves the environment;

Save the whales… all of them.

When they’ve accomplished all that—no doubt in the first days of a Hillary Clinton or Russ Feingold presidency and a Democrat-controlled Congress—they can take on the big one: Conquering death.

Of course, that might require a second term.

Lefties and Dems: What If You're Wrong?

2006-03-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

You’ve been relentless in your all-out assault on President Bush, and it has taken a toll on his poll numbers.

Your weapons have been lies, as in “Bush Lied, Thousands Died,” when you know your own party viewed Saddam as a threat and also believed that he had WMDs.

Your weapons have included assaults on the honor and integrity of U.S. troops fighting this war. Durbin compared them to Nazis; Kerry claimed they terrorized innocent Iraqis.

Your weapons included Abu Ghraib, again and again and again on the front pages of left-leaning newspapers. New photos published with glee. False charges that the abuses there were institutional, rather than the actions of a handful of troops gone bad.

Your weapons have included denial… refusing to print any side of the story that doesn’t fit your view of reality, no matter how compelling the facts. If it hurts Bush, run it. Doesn’t matter if it is even factual. From day one, you have dismissed the mounting and compelling evidence that Saddam had WMDs and shipped them to Syria before the war. You deny the words that have come out of Saddam’s own mouth in his recordings, words that confirm his WMD programs and ties to terrorism. You have denied or dismissed the numerous contacts between al Qaeda and Saddam’s Iraq that dated to the 1990s, including some reports that the 9/11 hijackers met with Iraqi intelligence before the attacks on America. Yet you print anything that reflects poorly on the United States, our troops and President Bush.

Your weapons have included publishing secret information that hampers our ability to protect the nation and pursue the war to a successful conclusion.

You oppose the interception of communications between known terrorists abroad and their contacts in the United States, even to the point of suggesting the president be impeached over the program.

You want to win the next election at all costs, yet you offer no plan whatsoever for handling Islamic terror, because you know that to offer a plan means taking a stance, and you don’t want to alienate either the cut-and-run crowd or those Democrats who know we are in a war against terrorists who want to kill us and that any retreat only emboldens the murderers. So you stand for nothing, splitting the difference, talking out of both sides of your mouth.

You will oppose any action against Iran, even if it means their gaining nuclear weapons that may then be given to terrorists to use against us. You apparently distrust President Bush more than you do the Iranian fascists and the terrorists.

But, what if you’re wrong? What if this is a fight that we must continue until the scourge of terror is wiped from the face of the Earth and Islamofascists and their supporting states realize that there is no percentage in attacking the United States? What if a nuclear device goes off in a U.S. city because you cared more about playing politics and hating the duly elected President of the United States than you did about protecting the nation and its people? What will you say then? When it is too late…

Take it to the Mullahs

2006-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

One more reason to attack Iran: Intelligence has found that the deadliest improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being used against American troops in Iraq are being manufactured and shipped from Iran.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1692347&page=1

As if we didn’t already suspect.

The fact is, we are at war with Iran and have been since Jimmy Carter’s weak-kneed presidency. If we are at war with terrorism, then we are at war with Iran in any case, but now we have direct evidence of their active participation in the killing of U.S. troops.

And this regime wants to acquire nuclear weapons!

We need to take the decisive step and wipe out that government once and for all. They are just begging for it. Let's oblige, and soon.

Cancer in the Classroom

2006-03-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

The leftist indoctrination of American youth in schools and colleges needs to stop. Thanks to some courageous students who are reporting teachers and professors for inappropriate propagandizing in the classroom, more and more educational institutions are being forced to deal with what has clearly become an intolerable situation.

In Colorado, a high school world geography teacher was recorded by a student as he ranted about the evils of capitalism and in a duplicitous, passive-aggressive manner, compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Brainwashed students protesting that teacher’s suspension as the case is investigated only underscored the degree to which they are affected by such indoctrination by shouting “Bush sucks!”

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, another high school teacher organized a school supported war crimes trial of President Bush that the teacher and principal passive-aggressively tried to pass off as an educational exercise.

Many colleges and universities, despite their pretense of promoting diversity and open discussion of ideas, have banned ROTC and recruiters from campus and employed police state tactics to stifle the conservative viewpoints, limiting the free speech rights of conservative students while allowing leftist hate mongers such as Ward Churchill free reign to spout their invective. Professors have been known to berate students who don’t adhere to the leftist party line.

It’s time parents, as well as students, took a stand. Through the local school board and PTA, parents need to strenuously object to all forms of propaganda in the classroom. Parents of college-bound students who will be spending their hard-earned dollars to provide their children with a strong educational foundation must insist that professors teach, rather than preach. Alumni must vote with their pocketbooks by withholding funding for institutions of higher learning that engage in political indoctrination.

When I went to grammar school and high school in the ‘50s and ‘60s, we still said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and teachers emphasized subjects such as good manners, good citizenship, personal responsibility and reverence for our institutions, in addition to math, English, science, history and geography. We were encouraged to think and debate but teachers did not use the classroom to push their own political or social agenda.

Somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn and a cancer began spreading throughout our educational system. It is high time that cancer were excised.

Making Sense of the UAE Port Controversy

2006-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

I have to admit; my first reaction to the announcement that a United Arab Emirates company would be running some of our ports was extremely negative. It didn't help the way the Bush Administration bungled the announcement and then compounded it by vowing to veto any legislation aimed at stopping the acquisition and then further compounded it by announcing that the president hadn't even been aware of his underlings' stamp of approval on the deal until after the fact. And it really didn't help that Jimmy Carter sided with GW on this one!

But upon further reflection, I reluctantly come down in favor of the deal, with the following provision: We must insist that the onsite management of the ports in question be in American hands, with those port managers being subject to background checks.

Why have I changed my mind? Well, not because so many Democrats did their usual dance and objected to the port deal, not out of any conviction (for they have none) but for purely political reasons in that it gave them an opportunity to appear to get to the right of Bush on at least one issue. And not because so many thinking conservatives, such as the great Bill Bennett, have made cogent arguments against the UAE takeover. And not because other conservatives, such as Rush Limbaugh, have stated the logic behind their support for the deal. The reason I now side with the president is that I trust him with our national security and am certain that there are some pretty good reasons that he is not at liberty to discuss in public for something that appears on the surface to be somewhat counterintuitive to our security interests.

In short, I believe we have a deal with the UAE to serve as the launching point for the coming attack on Iran. I am willing to trust President Bush that he will use force of arms to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and, while he's at it, change the Islamofascist terrorist-supporting regime there.

If I have any quarrel with the president it is that we have not been ruthless enough in pursuing the War on Terror. We are in a fight to the death and, no matter what the Democrats or McCain or anyone else says, we need to pursue that fight with whatever force it takes to prevail. That means treating terrorist prisoners harshly, torturing them if necessary to break the back of al Qaeda and hunt down and kill its leaders. It means executing non-uniformed fighters (who are not covered by the Geneva Convention) who murder civilians and shoot at U.S. and Iraqi and allied soldiers. It means making making any country that helps terrorists in any way quake in their boots at the prospect of American retribution. The president has been hamstrung by Democrat lies and Republican spinelessness and backstabbing Europeans, but he needs to stick to his guns.

Having said all that, there is no one out there on the political horizon, in either party, who I belieive takes a tougher stand against the Islamofascists than President Bush. I will take him at his word that the UAE port deal is in our national interest. But Iran's got to go.

Sectarian Violence in Iraq and the War on Terror

2006-02-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

Critics of President Bush’s policies in Iraq will doubtless smirk, “I told you so,” as sectarian violence over the bombing of one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines spins the country toward potential civil war. But, no matter what unfolds in Iraq, confronting radical Islam through the War on Terror remains a sound strategy not only for the United States but for Western Civilization as a whole.

We have been at war with radical Islam at least since the mid-‘70s, when the Ayatollahs took over in Iran, once-beautiful Beirut was reduced to pockmarked rubble as Syria destroyed Lebanon and UN peacekeepers were being kidnapped and murdered. We were at war, but we didn’t realize it. The seizure of our embassy in Tehran, the hostage ordeal, the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut, the first World Trade Center attack, the bombing of our embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole followed. It took the destruction of the World Trade Center and the loss of nearly 3,000 innocent lives to awaken us from our slumber and take up the fight.

A civil war in Iraq won’t change all that. Nor will it change the fact that the world’s leading terrorist state, Iran, headed by an unhinged latter-day Hitler, is on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons.

The War on Terror—and against regimes that aid, abet, fund, arm, incite, direct or provide refuge to Islamic terrorists—must continue. If we unilaterally stop fighting, the terror attacks will only continue, will only escalate, and Western Civilization will gradually give way to a culture and an un-Reformed religion that are rooted in Medieval times.

That is not an option.

Enforcing Good Manners Among the White House Press Corps

2006-02-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

As the entire Dick Cheney hunting accident White House Press Corps brouhaha has underscored, once again, news media decorum must be restored.

No matter how much media malpractice occurs as a result of blatant political bias, we cannot and should not monkey with the First Amendment. The free market, i.e., the listening, viewing and reading audience, will reward or punish those who abuse their journalistic rights. And that is already happening.

But is it too much to demand of talking heads in the media that—while they might despise the current occupant of the White House (and members of the so-called mainstream media certainly do), they should at least observe a modicum of respect for the Office of the President.

President Bush has already leaned in this direction by refusing to call upon the snarling, bitter, self-anointed “dean” of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas. And no doubt his Press Secretary Scott McClellan will be adding other rude reporters to the list of “no calls” after the abominable behavior exhibited by some of them during the quail hunting feeding frenzy.

But I have a more elegant solution.

While not calling on an offensive reporter doesn’t give the talking head his or her moment in the sun, said Media Star is still on the premises and still able to take down what is occurring during the press briefing. A better way would be for Mr. McClellan to lay down some rules of behavior during White House press events.

First and foremost would be showing the proper respect for the Office of the President of the United States. That means not using insulting or demeaning language or tone of voice when addressing the president or his representatives. The subject matter of questions would not be affected; just their delivery. The president of Mr. McClellan could then answer or choose not to answer questions, as they see fit, and if reporters persist in asking questions that are leading in nature or beneath discussion or repetitive, the president or Mr. McClellan could simply do as they do now and say, “I’ve already addressed that question and now consider the subject closed; now let’s move on to another question.”

Offending reporters who failed to follow the rules of politeness and respect would simply be banned from the White House—denied access.

Pretty soon, the organizations for which these boorish reporters work would have a choice to make: Either not cover the White House and thereby miss out on all the news as it happens; or exhibit some old fashioned decorum.

The only downside of this proposal is that it would deny self-absorbed Media Stars the opportunity to make fools out of themselves on national television, for the public to witness in their full glory. But at least it might teach people manners.

Thought for the Day

2006-02-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

In the interest of bipartisanship and reconciliation, Vice President Dick Cheney has invited Reid, Pelosi and Kennedy bird hunting. Let's all hope they exhibit the proper spirit and accept.

Western Civilization in the Balance

2006-02-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

The riots over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, like the election of Hammas by the Palestinians and the Paris riots, are a good thing. They let us—and more important, the Europeans—know exactly where Muslim opinion stands and how far they are willing to go in the jihad against Western Civilization.

Will the Europeans join us in the War on Terror as a result of this knowledge? Perhaps later. Courage is a fleeting virtue in decadent socialist nanny states, and available funding for military readiness is sparse. But, surely, they must know that this is but a taste of what is in store if they bury their heads in the sand as they did before the Second World War.

Europe doesn’t know it yet, but they are at war. It is a clash between Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian culture and a Medieval society based on a religion that never underwent a Reformation. It is a clash between a tradition of tolerance and one of intolerance and hostility. It is a clash between believers in human rights and freedom of expression versus subjugation and tyranny.

The enemy is ruthless and cunning—some of the harshest images that provoked the cartoon riots were created and disseminated by radical Islamist clerics. They think nothing of murdering innocent men, women and children of any faith, including their own. They seek weapons of mass destruction and will use them.

The only course of action for the West and the civilized world is to fight to the death, destroy the radicals and their perversion of the Muslim religion, then reform that religion, instill an appreciation for human rights among its people and create societies where liberty and economic freedom abound and militant theocracy and corruption are banished.

At this moment, the defense of the West is led by the United States and a handful of free nations. Most of Old Europe, along with Russia and China, either stand on the sidelines or ally with the enemy in a futile attempt to avoid becoming a target of Islamic radicals. Yet targets they are.

Eventually, they will come to their senses. But before that happens, how many innocent people will have to die? Will they wake up before a jetliner flies into crowded buildings in Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow or Beijing? Or will it take a mushroom cloud? Time is growing short and the battle is at hand.

Who will have the courage to join us?

Dishonoring Coretta Scott King

2006-02-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

The left never learns.

Just as they turned the Paul Wellstone memorial service into a low-class partisan political rally, people who should have been celebrating the life of civil rights heroine Coretta Scott King turned to Bush-bashing. SCLC co-founder Rev. Joseph Lowery and that weak-kneed ex-president who made the War on Terror necessary, Jimmy Carter, defiled the proceedings with insults hurled at President Bush, who, with the First Lady, came to honor Mrs. King.

The crazed left may applaud such antics, but the American people know a cheap shot when they see it and are not amused. Lowry, Carter and the rest of the so-called leaders on the left are small-minded and crude and they dishonor Mrs. King and themselves.

They should keep it coming. They are converting more and more upstanding Americans to Republicans.

A BOLD STRATEGY FOR DEALING WITH IRAN

2006-01-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

The road to victory in the War on Terror has always led through Tehran.

Iran has long been recognized as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and the country continues to funnel money, arms and jihadists into Iraq for the sole purpose of destabilizing the new government and killing Americans and innocent civilians. But it is the ascendancy of belligerent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (whom many believe to have been a leader in the 1979 hostage-taking of Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran) and his nation’s mad dash to attain nuclear weapons that have moved Iran to the front burner for both the United States and Israel.

Two things are clear at this point: No diplomatic solution is possible; and Europeans, for all their bluster, will not be at our side when military action becomes essential. The time for the latter is drawing nigh, for in a post-9/11 world, we cannot afford to allow the world’s leading supporter of terrorism to join the nuclear club.

Only two nations, the United States and Israel, have the capacity and the will to stage a successful attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In Gulf Wars I and II, the United States sought to keep Islamic emotions somewhat in check by urging Israel not to become involved, and conventional wisdom suggests that in any action aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, it remains in our interest to keep Israel out of the equation.

But what if conventional wisdom is wrong? The world has changed dramatically in recent years, and so should our strategy for dealing with Iran. Her neighbor to the east, Afghanistan, is a U.S. ally and no longer serves as a base for unchecked radical Islamic terrorism. On her western border, Saddam’s regime is history, replaced by a fledgling democracy whose military and police forces are slowly but surely developing the capability for handling both die-hard Baathists and foreign terrorists (who are aided and abetted by Iran and Syria). The government of Pakistan, on her southeastern flank, was co-opted by the United States after 9/11. Libya has taken itself out of the fight. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have seen first-hand that they cannot remain neutral in the face of radical Islamic terrorism. Syrian excesses have forced the government of Bashar Assad to withdraw forces from Lebanon, where independence is in the air. Yasser Arafat is dead, the Palestinian Authority is as ineffectual as ever, and Israel’s security fence appears to be working. Al Qaeda has been unable to stage another attack on the U.S. mainland since 9/11, its leadership holed up in mountain caves under constant threat of death by Predator.

Iran is isolated and surrounded, yet its fundamentalist government thumbs its nose at the west, believing that the Europeans are all talk and that the United States is too isolated politically, too bogged down in Iraq, and too fearful of an oil cutoff to risk opening another front by attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.

There is a certain logic to that view, though it unravels completely if we do the unexpected: Openly ally with Israel to stage joint air, land and sea operations aimed not just at Iraq’s nuclear program but at overthrowing the regime itself, with the following objectives:

• Destroy Iran’s nuclear capability;

• Decapitate the regime;

• Eliminate all radar installations, missile sites, military bases, troop concentrations and terrorist training facilities;

• Seize and protect the Iranian oil fields for the Iranian people;

• Install a moderate, democratic government.

An open alliance with Israel would be a significant force multiplier for our own military, which presently is stretched to the limit. Israel would bring to the table capabilities that—for largely political reasons—the United States lacks, such as freedom of action in dealing with Iran’s radical mullahs. And while an open alliance might inflame Islamic passions, the military lethality of our combined forces would surely strike fear in the hearts of our enemies.

Limiting our action to air attacks on known nuclear facilities, without taking down the regime, carries greater risk that we may miss any parallel, clandestine nuclear program Iran may have in the works. And it simply kicks the can down the road with respect to Iran’s continuing support of global terrorism. Moreover, regime change may actually lessen the pressure we are feeling from the so-called insurgents in Iraq, because Iran would be preoccupied with defending its home base.

What of Iran’s ally, Syria? We can hold them in place by threatening President Bashar Assad personally with massive air strikes unless he stays out of the fight, shuts down his border with Iraq once and for all, clamps down on terrorists and begins enacting democratic reforms. After the war, we can still hold his feet to the fire on these points and he will fold like a pup tent in a hurricane.

There is the little matter of a War Powers Resolution. Scholars have debated its constitutionality since the act’s inception, but presidents have avoided a test case thus far. With Alito about to tip the balance of the Supreme Court and the stakes so high, President Bush should act first and face the political heat later, taking the fight all the way up to the highest court, if necessary. If this prompts calls for impeachment—which the Democrats are pushing in any case—it would be well worth the risk.

The most problematic part of this bold strategy is establishing a democratic government in Iran to fill the vacuum. That is much easier said than done, but there is strong sentiment among the disenfranchised Iranian people against their radical Islamist government. It would require boots on the ground, but there we may actually be able to convince the Europeans to help provide post-war stability, even if they are unwilling to participate in the combat phase.

The bottom line is we have no choice but to act and act soon, before the terrorists running Iran get their hands on a nuke.

New Rules Needed for Compromising Security in Time of War

2006-01-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

In another time, not so very long ago, it would have been a crime worthy of capital punishment. Consider, for example, the breaking of the German and Japanese codes during World War II and the extraordinary lengths the Allies went through to avoid giving even a hint that the codes had been compromised.

Had any American citizen, government official or journalist revealed this sensitive information, it would have meant many more allied soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines being killed in action. It would have jeopardized our ultimate victory in the war and no doubt the leakers would have been punished most severely, perhaps even with their lives. It was that important to keep the secret.

Flash forward to today, when we are facing an enemy just as ruthless, just as evil and just as threatening to our way of life as we did in World War II. Our very civilization again hangs in the balance. In some ways, the Islamofascists are even more dangerous than the Nazis or Imperial Japanese, because they are essentially stateless, or would have us believe them to be, so the normal restrictions on, say, use of chemical and biological weapons do not factor into their operations.

Revelations by The New York Times of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) ability to intercept telephone, internet and other electronic communications have probably led our enemies in al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, along with the countries that support them (Iran and Syria, among others) to switch to snail mail and hand-delivered communications. That hurts the war effort and makes it much more difficult to discover and head off terror attacks designed to kill more Americans at home and abroad. There needs to be some accountability.

First and foremost, the people who divulged this secret information need to be found, prosecuted and punished for their crime. To do so, we will have to subpoena reporters’ notes and probably throw some journalists in jail to force them to comply. Thankfully, the precedent for that has already been set by liberals in the much-less-serious Valerie Plame affair. The First Amendment probably protects The New York Times from prosecution, but this breach of security and their active role in it are so serious that some sort of sanction ought to at least be attempted, even if it means forcing a test case upon the courts. At the very least, the White House should ban the newspaper from its press conferences as well as from all government news events. Cut off the flow of information to them and it will make it much more difficult and expensive for them to do their job—or to do further harm to our national security.

Reluctantly, we also should investigate the wisdom of adopting some version of the British Official Secrets Act that would make publishing such sensitive information in time of war a major criminal offense. We also need to change the charters of the CIA, NSA and State Department to make them more like the military, where rules of conduct are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Military personnel, even those who abhor the policies of the President of the United States, are nonetheless obligated by law to follow his lawful orders as Commander in Chief. Right now, within the CIA and State Department (and presumably within the NSA) there are people who do not agree with the policies of the duly elected president and, like Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, are doing their utmost to undermine those policies. In wartime, that should be a crime.

This is a war we must win. Therefore, we cannot afford traitors among us, be they journalists or private citizens. The New York Times, in its zeal to get President Bush, has stepped way over the line and made it much more likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans will die in some terror attack that might have been thwarted if the Times hadn’t compromised the intercepts. Loose Lips Sink Ships.

Remember that, fellow Americans, when the terrorists next strike. And be sure to thank The New York Times.

Mine Tragedy Teaches Hard Crisis Management Lesson

2006-01-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Classic crisis communications. That was my assessment of the International Coal Group’s (ICG) handling of the tragic Sago Mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, up until the very final stages of the gripping story.

They were cautious, careful not to speculate, concerned, informative and available—all the things a company should be in a crisis situation. ICG in particular was in a bad spot. They had recently acquired a mine with what the news media called a questionable safety record. They clearly wanted to do the right thing. They avoided raising false hopes, yet refused to concede defeat as they managed the heroic effort to rescue the trapped miners and deal with their families, government agencies and hordes of reporters asking leading questions. Several times during the coverage, I nodded my head in agreement with the outstanding job ICG’s CEO and spokespeople were doing in communicating events as they unfolded.

Then, at the very last moment, if you will pardon the expression, the roof caved in. Somehow, the message emerged from the depths of that mine that 12 miners had been found alive. The news spread like wildfire. Relatives rejoiced, the Governor of West Virginia, ICG management, the Red Cross and people around the world breathed a big sigh of relief at the miraculous rescue… only to have all our hopes cruelly dashed just hours later when we learned the real story: Just one miner had survived. The rest were dead. Joy turned immediately to grief, anguish and anger. It was completely understandable, but as the events are investigated, dissected and reconstructed in weeks to come, I am certain we will learn that the mining company did not intentionally deceive us. What would have been the point, after all? More likely, a rumor based on a misunderstanding simply got out of control and everyone, from the news media to the ICG leadership to the governor to the friends and relatives of the trapped miners, to all the rest of us across the world who were following the story grabbed onto the apparent miracle and held on for dear life.

I don’t know the circumstances of how the false information came to be delivered. Perhaps ICG could have done something to quash the rumor before it got legs and started running, but perhaps not. Only time will tell.

What this incident does illustrate is the importance of avoiding all speculation at all costs in a crisis situation, no matter what the temptation, no matter what you hear. Don’t say anything until you know it for a fact. If rumors arise, quash them immediately, even if the rumors appear to be good news. Wait until the facts can be verified firsthand, regardless of the temptation to put a positive face on things, regardless of the pleadings for more information by victims’ loved ones, regardless of relentless prodding by reporters. Do not give in to speculation. Do not announce anything until you are certain of the information. You may face recriminations afterward for not being more forthcoming or timely in releasing news, but that is a price you should be prepared to pay. The worst thing that can happen is what happened at the Sago Mine: hopes raised about as high as they could possibly go, only to be dashed about as badly as anyone could possibly imagine.

What had been a classic example of excellent crisis communications has turned into a disaster of monumental proportions, one that will be studied by lawyers, public relations executives and company managements for years to come. And everything turned on a dime.

The Sago Mine disaster offers an excellent though hard-gained lesson in crisis management. Every company should learn from it.

Targeting Iran and Syria

2006-01-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Iran and Syria, you’re next…

Both countries have been funneling weapons and terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans and innocent Iraqi citizens. Both countries are major supporters of international terrorism. Iran is thumbing its nose at the world as it brazenly pursues a nuclear bomb (they don’t need energy, because they have all the oil and gas they could possibly use). Iran’s president, despite denials by Iranian leaders themselves and the leftist U.S. news media, is most likely the thug who led the takeover of our embassy in Tehran in 1979, a blatant act of war that weak-kneed Jimmy Carter did absolutely nothing about (that was the first of the dots connecting to 9/11, by the way).

Now that the Iraqi situation is stabilizing and they have a fighting chance at democracy, it is time for us to turn our attention to our other enemies in this global war, and Iran and Syria ought to be at the top of the list.

This does not mean sending legions of battle-hardened American troops into either country. A more sophisticated strategy would be to first take out any nuclear facilities in Iran with precision bombing and perhaps small commando raids, then start targeting the head terrorists (including the presidents and top generals and weapons scientists of both Iran and Syria) personally, as we have shown we can do using drones, cruise missiles and other high-tech weaponry.

Both nations are extremely vulnerable. Iran is rapidly becoming an international pariah, and has essentially disenfranchised its population by prohibiting moderates from even participating in politics, and Syria has been exposed as a literally murderous regime to the extent that it was forced to pull out of Lebanon. It is high past punishment time.

Sure, the liberals and the Euros will fret, but neither have the teeth or the cojones to do much to stop us. They can rant and rave all they want, but why not let Bush be a lame duck president, if it means he can utilize his full powers as Commander In Chief to further transform the political (if not the physical) landscape of the Middle East? It would be worth it.

Already, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and to a large extent Saudi Arabia have one way or the other changed their ways. Other regimes are on the fence and watching for developments. The terrorists are on the run or in hiding just about everywhere except within the Axis of Evil. By forcefully and severely striking at the heads of the terrorist regimes in Iran and Syria, we might just send a message to North Korea that it is past time to pull a Libya and start reforming.

The War on Terror is not only winnable, but victory may be within our reach sooner rather than later. If we have the will.

Every Silver Lining Has Its Cloud

2006-01-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

An item caught my attention in The Houston Chronicle’s Letters to the Editor over the holidays. It had to have been written by a liberal because it took a good thing and found something negative to say about it.

The subject was tree plantings along some of Houston’s motorways. The author complained about the downside of such beautification projects: It seems that the trees are attracting wildlife, such as raccoons, which have to cross the road in order to get to the vegetation. Apparently, several were killed by cars.

You just can’t win with liberals. Pave over the trees along the highway to save the coons and they will be yelling about urban blight and loss of habitat. Nothing pleases these people because they are miserable little curmudgeons who want to run the world for the rest of us. Monday morning quarterbacking is their forte.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that The Chronicle ran the letter in the first place… and even added a photo! Of course, the so-called mainstream media is into the negativity up to its neck, so I suppose it was to be expected.

The Party of "No"

2005-12-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Groucho Marx sings a song in the movie Horsefeathers that ought to be the Democrats’ anthem: “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It!” More and more, they are like the David Spade character in those “No” television commercials. You never see a Democrat smiling. He or she always has a look of pure constipation and misery, with a whiny, nagging voice to match.

Like a herd of lemmings, Democrats have collectively gone off the deep end. They are against the War on Terror, against detaining or rendering terrorists, and against intercepting communications between al Qaeda its sympathizers and agents among us. They are against the military, against the Iraqi elections, against George W. Bush, against Christians, against any Christmas displays (against even the mention of Christmas, for that matter), and against the national motto, In God We Trust. They are against the U.S. Constitution, at least when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms and freedom of speech (though they will use the Constitution to bolster their arguments against common-sense tactics against terrorists, for instance). They are, in short, against our institutions, our traditions and against the truth.

It is a wonder they haven’t caught on by now to how negative and sour and unfulfilled and extremist and, well, whiny they sound. It is a wonder they haven’t figured out that in a time of great peril, as we are now, no sane American would trust them near the White House. That is why Hillary has to “move right” and pretend she is something she is most assuredly not. It doesn’t bother her to do so because lying comes naturally to Democrats; it’s what they do.

As far as I am concerned, as annoying as it is to hear them carp and bitch and second-guess and twist the truth, it is somewhat refreshing. Why? Because they have dug themselves a very, very deep hole and only continue to dig it deeper. Who wants to vote for a party that only wishes the worst for America and only thinks the worst of America?

Democrat Storm Troopers Abuse Their Office to Persecute Political Opponents

2005-12-23T07:21:00.000-08:00

Why the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment grants Americans the right to a speedy trial is underscored by the Tom DeLay case, in which rogue prosecutor Ronnie Earle is abusing his position to pursue a political vendetta against the Texas Congressman.

Earle has a long history of misusing his office to bring down political opponents by charging them with criminal conduct. His record of having case after case thrown out illustrates how baseless his past attempts to criminalize politics have been. Where he has been successful in the DeLay affair is in forcing the Congressman to temporarily step down from his leadership role. By dragging out the trial date, Earle and his fellow Democrats hope to keep DeLay out of his Republican Party leadership position indefinitely.

Why? Because DeLay is effective.

The larger issue is abuse of power by people like Ronnie Earle. That means the entire Democratic Party. They have been trying to get not only DeLay, but President Bush, by throwing anything and everything up against the wall to see what sticks. Of course, this requires lying, which is something the Democrats have refined to an art form.

The danger to the American people is that such behavior thwarts the democratic process, emboldens our enemies in al Qaeda and undermines confidence in government and other American institutions.

The Democrats aren’t about to change and that is why Republicans should turn the tables and start prosecuting people like Ronnie Earle.

Short-Sighted Senators Sabotage U.S. Energy Security... Again

2005-12-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

People, did you enjoy that $3-plus gasoline after hurricanes Katrina and Rita? Well, look for more to come, thanks to 40 Democrats, three Republicans and one Independent in the U.S. Senate who blocked drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Three Republicans—DeWine of Ohio; Chafee of Rhode Island; and Frist of Tennessee (yes, THAT Frist)—sided with 40 Democrats and one Independent, Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords of Vermont to strip ANWR drilling from the defense bill on December 21.

The four Democrats who voted in favor of ANWR drilling were Akaka and Inouye of Hawaii, Landrieu of Louisiana and Nelson of Nebraska.

Once again, shortsightedness and knee-jerk environmentalism killed a provision that would have greatly enhanced American energy security. This, despite the post-hurricane economics lesson that tight supplies and high demand inevitably equal sharply higher prices. This, despite the fact that we are fighting a War on Terror in a region of the world that provides much of our energy needs.

There are probably 10 billion barrels of oil waiting to be tapped in Alaska’s North Slope, possibly more. The land is desolate tundra, virtually unvisited by man, but inhabited by caribou and other wildlife that have been found to thrive amid oil drilling in other parts of the state. Alaskans want the area explored, a majority in the U.S. House wants it explored, but a bunch of idiots in the Senate figure the American people are stupid enough to forget the way they voted and blame the oil companies the next time prices spike. And the sad part is, Americans probably are that stupid, or there would have been a greater public outcry.

Besides ANWR, the East Coast, the West Coast and the Florida Coast are all closed to exploration and drilling. Oil companies operate in an environmentally responsible manner around the globe in many areas far more sensitive than any of those mentioned above. Yet, 44 members of the Senate would rather take their chances on future hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, tanker oil spills and terrorist attacks on Mideast oil fields than develop America’s own petroleum supplies.

Note also that many of these same Senators who routinely oppose drilling are often the first to charge American security policy in the Middle East is a tradeoff of blood for oil.

They make me sick. And they ought to make you sick. Remember them when the price of gasoline, home heating oil, natural gas and other petroleum products goes through the roof next time. And that time is surely coming.

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO MANUFACTURE

2005-12-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

Back in the mid-‘70s, when the mainstream news media still had a modicum of integrity, the utility company where I worked as a junior PR executive received a surprise visit by a group of community activists protesting electricity rates.

Accompanied by a local TV reporter, the protestors attempted to gain access to our chairman’s office. Because the chairman had received a death threat from Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, we’d installed automatic locks on doors leading from the reception area to the executive offices. I met the group at one door, physically barring them so it would require an assault on my person to gain entry. We had reached a standstill until the TV reporter held open a side door through which an employee had just passed and ushered the protestors into the executive suite. It took the police to get them to leave, and the entire confrontation was caught on camera.

I called the TV station to ask that they pull the story because their reporter had been an active participant, rather than a simple chronicler of events. The station complied.

My, how times have changed.

In its latest attempt to undermine President Bush, our troops and the War on Terror, The New York Times last week published a news story exposing a top secret National Security Agency communications intercept program aimed at preempting acts of terror against the United States. The president acknowledged authorizing the program under his powers as Commander in Chief during wartime, and noted that many of the very Democratic Party leaders in Congress who are now feigning shock and outrage were fully briefed on it.

What is important about this story from a media integrity perspective is that The New York Times had it and held it for a year in order to create maximum political damage just as the Patriot Act was coming up for renewal. In other words, the Times was an active participant in manufacturing the news, rather than a chronicler of events, as is their charge.

This is certainly not the first time this has happened; the Times and other so-called mainstream media organizations regularly act as operatives of the Democratic Party, through acts of commission (as in the NSA story), acts of omission (covering only one side of the story) and repetition (I stopped counting after the Times ran more than 60 stories on unauthorized abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, for which the perpetrators were court martialed).

Examples of blatant media bias and complete lack of integrity abound:
· The Los Angeles Times held its story alleging inappropriate behavior by Arnold Schwarzenegger until just before California’s gubernatorial election, in an attempt to influence voters;
· The New York Times failed to cover a major scandal in its own backyard involving highly questionable “loans” by the Brooklyn-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club to the failed leftist radio program Air America;
· Strong evidence of cooperation between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein dating back to the 1990s that has been completely ignored by the mainstream press (Read The Connection by Stephen F. Hayes);
· Dan Rather’s phony Bush National Guard story;
· The mainstream media’s complete failure to investigate Kerry’s Vietnam medals and involvement with the fraudulent Winter Soldier Project, which had fake Vietnam veterans joining Kerry in leveling untrue war crimes charges against all American forces in Vietnam;
· One-sided reporting on the Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame affair when it was clear that Joe Wilson had a political axe to grind against the president, had inside help (and freedom to publish) from rogue elements within the CIA, and lied about his findings;
· Leftist-spin reporting on the Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha’s cut-and-run-from-Iraq bill, which, when Republicans called Democrats’ bluff and put immediate withdrawal to an up or down vote, Murtha himself voted against the measure;
· Just about all mainstream media reporting on Iraq or President Bush, which focuses exclusively only on the negative.

When you consider these and countless other violations of honesty and objectivity by the mainstream media and add to that the scandals involving phony reporting by The New York Times’ own Jason Blair, among others, it makes you wonder how anyone but a Democrat ideologue could have any faith whatsoever in what passes for news today. The question is: What is to be done about it?

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, so it is difficult to imagine any circumstance under which the government would try to abridge that basic right, although in past conflicts, including World War II, the news media were subject to government censorship. Another right granted under the First Amendment—freedom of speech—does have some legally recognized restrictions, such as the “crying fire in a crowded theater” exception. Moreover, public figures, primarily actors, have had some success in recent years suing supermarket tabloids for liable or invasion of privacy. But there are some things government, and we, the public, can do to make the media more accountable for their actions.

First, we can cancel our subscriptions to offending newspapers and magazines and turn the channel away from biased television and radio news. This is already happening. Nationwide, newspaper circulation is plummeting, as more and more people turn to the internet or other sources. In part, this phenomenon is due to an ever-expanding array of media choices, as is the case with the equally alarming decline in motion picture box office receipts. But an equally valid reason may be that Americans can recognize basic fairness and are turned off as much by biased reporting as they are by political views pushed by know-nothing singers and actors.

Next, the White House should ban reporters from the most egregiously biased media outlets (The New York Times being one of the worst), as well as correspondents who do not exhibit proper respect for the office in their manner of questioning. Cut them off from press conferences and other events and let them get their information from other elsewhere.

When secret information is leaked to the news media by government personnel, as was the case in the intelligence intercepts and The Washington Post’s story on CIA terrorist prisons overseas, Republicans should take a page from the Democrats’ Valerie Plame playbook and appoint a special prosecutor to track down and punish the leakers, while forcing the reporters to reveal their sources.

Finally, smug editors and television news executives need to start policing themselves if they hope to hold onto their rapidly dwindling audiences. Leftist media moguls may scoff at Fox News, but there is a reason why the cable network is cleaning their clocks when it comes to ratings…

It’s a little thing called “fair and balanced.”

Stop Kissing Up to the Cut and Runners

2005-12-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

Republicans, we need to stop kissing Rep. Murtha’s posterior and that of Sen. John Kerry for their service in the United States military in Vietnam. Just because they are veterans (as am I, though I did not get sent to Vietnam as requested) doesn’t mean that they or I have one ounce more moral authority when it comes to what the country should do in the Iraqi Battleground of the War on Terror.

All of us have equal standing when it comes to this war. It is the equivalent of World War II, the War Between the States or the American Revolution, in that it is truly a war for national survival. The terrorists want to kill all of us—men, women and children, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists—just because we are Americans. They ask no quarter and deserve none.

Contrary to what the anti-war crowd, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter and most of the Democratic Party claim, this isn’t Vietnam. If we lose this war, we lose our lives and our country to the vilest people imaginable. Look at Afghanistan under the Taliban. Look at the murders committed in the name of radical Islam by that regime. Look at the stoning and humiliation of women. Look at the wanton destruction of historical monuments. And remember that Afghanistan was the launching pad for 9/11 and provided sanctuary to its plotters. This is a war we cannot afford to lose, but lose it we can. We cannot allow Iraq to become another Afghanistan.

As Sen. Joe Lieberman so eloquently explained, and as President Bush has so often noted, Iraq is an essential battle in the War on Terror. When the President declared that war, and Congress assented, it was against the perpetrators of 9/11, radical Islamic terrorists, and those who provided aid, comfort, weapons, training, sanctuary and support for the terrorists. Not just the 9/11 terrorists, but all terrorists who would do us harm. That meant Iraq, as well as Afghanistan. Eventually, it may mean Iran, Syria and North Korea.

The President’s job and Congress’ charge is to prevent future 9/11s, and that requires going on the offensive.

We are all soldiers in this war; and as 9/11 so aptly demonstrated, we are all its potential casualties. So, when politicians of any stripe put electioneering and undermining the President and the war effort above national security, they deserve to be taken to task. Murtha allowed himself to be used to undercut the Battle of Iraq and bring the troops home prematurely. At the end of the day, he didn’t even have the courage of his convictions to back his own proposal. Kerry equates our soldiers to terrorists on the one hand and throws around his military service credentials with the other to the point where he has taken stands on all sides of the issue, but the bottom line is, he would cut and run if he were in charge and that would be a disaster for the rest of us. We might as well paint targets on our foreheads if the retreat crowd wins out.

Murtha and Kerry may have been servicemen once, but now, they are tired, old politicians who are just flat wrong when it comes to protecting America’s national security—that means you and me.

So, let’s stop kissing their behinds and call them for the surrender monkeys they are. Let’s continue to take the fight to the enemy until the terrorists and their allies realize that the United States of America is a country to be respected… and feared.

Rumsfeld v. FAIR: Important Supreme Court Ruling Pending

2005-12-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Supreme court is currently reviewing the Solomon Amendment, which would bar federal funding to universities that do not permit military recruiters on campus. Early indications are that the court will uphold the band, in which case the universities will have to decide whether to forego the estimated $35 billion a year they receive in federal financial support.

The case, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (“FAIR”), according to the universities opposing the Solomon Amendment, supposedly revolves around gay rights. Because the military “discriminates” against homosexuals in its don’t ask, don’t tell policy, the universities have a right to exclude military recruiters, the academics say. They argue it is a question of free speech; the court appears skeptical.

Of course, the academics—leftists all—are doing what leftists do best: lying. Their real objection is to the military itself. The discrimination argument is only a fig leaf for their anti-American bias. Many of these same universities have banned military recruiters, as well as ROTC programs, since the War in Vietnam, whereas the Solomon Amendment only dates to 1996.

With the nation at war with brutal terrorists, we owe our military all the support we can muster, and denying anti-American universities federal funding if they ban the defenders of freedom from their campuses is not only right and just, but long overdue.

You won’t find much discussion of the pending court decision in the so-called mainstream media, because it looks as though the leftists are going to lose this one.

We already know just what academics are; now we’ll see what their price is. My guess is that they will take the money.

More Democrat Gutter Speech

2005-12-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

This just in from Drudge:

Statement by Kerry spokesman David Wade: 'Ken Mehlman’s filthy and shameful lie about a decorated combat veteran is disgraceful. Political hack Ken Mehlman and draft dodging, donut eating Rush Limbaugh have something in common. Neither of them know anything about how to make American troops safe. John Kerry will continue to speak out about how to succeed in Iraq and protect brave American troops'…

This sort of spitting mad language is reminiscent of watching Democrat shill Lawrence O’Donnell go ballistic on fellow Houstonian and Swift Boat Veteran John O’Neil during the election campaign. O’Donnell was rude and crude and simply lost it in shouting, “Liar, liar” at the calm O’Neil. He looked and acted like a madman.

But then, the left has lost it completely in every way. From “Hee-Yaw!” Howard Dean and his outrageous claim that President Bush knew of 9/11 in advance to his recent characterization of the Iraq War as “unwinnable,” when we are clearly succeeding, to the Paul Wellstone funeral rally, where Republicans were disinvited and booed, Democrats are raving maniacs on virtually every subject. But especially when it comes to President Bush and the War on Terror.

They have lost all perspective and all objectivity. And they are oblivious to the way they look to the rest of us, who just want to live our lives in peace and safety, celebrate Christmas and behave more civilly.

They, like the French in Paris who simply watched the cars burn, want to wave the white flag of surrender. In doing so, purely for perceived political gain, at whatever cost to our fighting men and women and U.S. security, they are hoping for a future they truly do not understand--a future where the terrorists are emboldened and more Americans will surely die.

They and their willing allies in the so-called mainstream media have sold their souls. No lie is too big, no omission of the truth so grand, no insult so low, no language too corrosive or crude. The end justifies the means, and the end is power, but to what purpose?

They can’t tell you. They won’t tell you. So instead they lie. And shout. And undermine.

A Message for the G.O.P.

2005-11-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

Early Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, the phone rang. It was the Republican Party, asking for money. What they got instead was an earful.

“I want you to take this message back to the Party,” I said. “You will get no further money from me or my family until the Republicans in Congress develop a spine. I am tired of supporting so-called Republican candidates in the House and the Senate only to see them act like the minority party… in other words, incapable of governing. I am tired of helping field candidates with my hard-earned dollars who don’t support the President, run at the first sign of disapproval in the polls, are wishy washy on the War on Terror, won’t move conservative judicial nominees to an up or down vote, and spend my tax dollars like drunken sailors.”

“But it is vitally important that we hold onto the Senate majority in 2006,” said the Republican fundraiser.

“We don’t have the Senate right now,” I replied. “Look at the vote on the Warner Amendment [requiring periodic updates on the War in Iraq by the President and interpreted by Democrats and their media brethren as a vote of no confidence] by even supposedly conservative Senators such as John Cornyn of Texas and presidential hopeful George Allen, with only 13 Republicans voting nay.”

But I was just getting going. Before she could make another argument to contribute, I said, “Look at that weak-kneed excuse for a leader Bill Frist, and his even more weak-kneed predecessor Trent Lott, who wants his position back. Look at all the RINOS [Republicans in Name Only] like Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and that sell-out who owes his very election to President Bush, Arlen Specter. Look at the seven dwarf Republicans who cut a deal with the Democrats to avoid changing the rules on filibustering judicial appointments. As far as I am concerned, they are all clock-punching politicians with no ideology and no principles. Look at all the Members of Congress who fail to come to the aid of Tom Delay, yet excuse the Dick Durbins of the left.”

The lady from the Republican Party tried valiantly to make another pitch, but I cut her off at the knees: “I don’t want to talk about this anymore because it just makes me mad. Just tell the Party they will get no more money for me and if it takes losing the Senate to set them straight, then so be it.”

I hope she got the message. Better yet, I hope those spineless Republicans I helped elect get the message that they are losing their base.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

2005-11-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

With the country engaged in the War on Terror, we can no longer afford porous borders. Apart from the strain on social services caused by a huge tide of illegal aliens, open borders invite terrorist infiltration.

Building a wall or fence along the Mexican border, with sensing devices and an expanded Border Patrol, are part of the solution. Tougher penalties on illegals caught trying to enter the United States or already residing here—including jail time—is another necessary step, as is punishing American businesses that flout the law and hire illegals. And settling exactly what the 14th Amendment to the Constitution means when it says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” is imperative. Any law limiting citizenship of the children born to illegal aliens while in the United States will most certainly become a Supreme Court issue, so proponents of such legislation (myself included) should launch a parallel effort to amend the Constitution and plug this loophole. Time is of the essence.
The Canadian border, while apparently not a major conduit for illegal immigration, is still extremely porous to terrorists and must also be sealed.

Can it be done? As an Army officer in West Germany during the Cold War, whose unit patrolled the East German and Czech borders, I can answer with an unequivocal yes. The East Germans, in particular, had an extremely effective barrier system. Theirs included minefields and shotgun charges—which I certainly do not advocate employing—but their system of remote sensing devices, military patrols and a high chain-link fence, eventually replaced by a concrete wall topped by cylinders that rolled to prevent one from gaining purchase, worked.

Which brings me to my recommendation for an important, yet extremely simple, adjunct to any overall border security plan: stationing military units along both U.S. borders.
As long as we are closing or consolidating old and redundant military bases in the United States, why not exchange many of these properties for outposts all along the Mexican and Canadian borders, with major installations being relocated closer to those borders? That way, our military could perfect their skills in border interdiction (skills greatly in demand along Iraq’s borders with Syria and Iran today), while enforcing our laws against illegal immigration. By far the best training vehicle for any military or police force comes from performing a real job in the field against a real opponent, so our troops would gain extremely valuable experience. The military already has the best equipment available for incursion detection. Moreover, such a plan would reduce the level of expansion required in the Border Patrol, thereby resulting in cost savings, while increasing the deterrent factor to crossing into the United States illegally.
With the War on Terror, America’s porous borders have become a monumental national security concern, as opposed to just an easy conduit for illegal immigration. What better way to deal with the situation than with our Armed Forces?

Check out Matt May's Blog

2005-11-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

Matt May was kind enough to respond to a note I sent him about a particularly thoughtful piece he published in American Thinker. He encouraged me to start my own blog and then kindly gave it a plug. So I decided to reciprocate, not that it will help Matt any, because he is already getting picked up by some very prestigious blogs and publications.

Nobody knows about my site yet, but I am hoping a nod from Matt will help. If you do come across my blog, please be sure to check out Matt's at www.mattymay.blogspot.com. He's a great writer and more temperate than I am, which I admire greatly. And his heart and mind are definitely in the right place.

Thanks, Matt

The Christmas Revolution

2005-11-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Those are the first words of the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution, which also covers freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, the right to assemble and the right to petition the government.
This discussion will be limited to the establishment of religion
clause, as most people refer to it.

I'm neither a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar, but I do know what
the meaning of "is" is, and it seems to me that the ACLU, atheists,
liberal Democrats and activist judges for far too long have been given
free rein to interpret the clause not broadly, as conventional wisdom
assumes, but in an extremely limited manner: They focus solely on the
"establishment of religion" part, while completely ignoring the second
part, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

If anything, the second part carries more weight, because it relates
directly to the rest of the First Amendment, which deals with freedom
of expression.

The leftists have been on a roll in recent years to such an extent
that all of a sudden we find ourselves unable to participate in the
Christmas traditions Americans of all ages have enjoyed for more than
200 years.

"Merry Christmas" has become prohibited speech in America to such an
extent that it has become increasingly difficult to find even a
Christmas card that carries the greeting. If you think I am
exaggerating, go to any drugstore, supermarket or card specialty shop
and browse the selection. The word "Christmas" has been replaced by
the more inclusive—and bland—"Holidays." People from all walks of
life, from department store clerks to business executives (and most
certainly politicians) avoid the phrase "Merry Christmas" at all
costs. "Happy Holidays" is now the politically correct greeting.
Nativity scenes, Christmas pageants and carols that reference a higher
being are now banned from any location or venue even remotely
connected with local, state or federal government, including public
schools, city parades and anything else the ACLU can think of in their
relentless assault on the free exercise of religion. Soon, mark my
words, Christmas as a national holiday will cease to exist; it will
likely be replaced with some Druid-sounding, politically correct name,
such as "Winter Festival."

Ironically, in many places where Christmas and Christian religious
icons are banned, expressions of other religions—Menorahs and the
Koran, for example—are somehow acceptable in the name of tolerance and
diversity. Beyond the Christmas purge, all references to God or
Christianity are under attack from the left. Soon, we'll be chiseling
off adornments to thousands of government buildings, including the
U.S. Supreme Court, that feature Moses or the Ten Commandments or
(gasp!) the word "God". Our national motto, "In God We Trust," will
be stricken from all currency, "under God" excised from the Pledge of
Allegiance (they're not done with that one, yet), swearing on the
Bible in court or at inaugurations will be banned, and the expression
"God bless you," uttered to a sneezer will be strictly verboten.

Exaggeration? I don't think so. Who could have imagined the state we
are in today, when Christian churches are prohibited from
participating in "holiday parades" in which gay American Indians strut
their stuff?

Haven't the ACLU and activist judges crossed the line to such an
extent that they now prohibit the free exercise of religion—not to
mention free speech itself? Are we not experiencing tyranny of the
minority in America? And what is to be done about it?

Americans of all political persuasions must first ask themselves if
they wish to live in a country that prohibits Christmas, limits
freedom of speech and expressions of religion and allows a busybody
minority to impose its will—and whim—on the vast majority of our
citizens. In other words, do we believe in liberty or tyranny?

The answer to that is self-evident.

Then, we need to break the logjam in Congress that has prevented
strict constructionist judges from being appointed to the federal
courts. Democrats cannot be permitted to thwart the Constitution
procedurally by blocking judicial nominees from even coming up for a
vote. Up to now, they have justified their obstructionist tactics in
the name of preserving a woman's right to an abortion, but as we have
seen, the implications go far beyond that narrow issue to encompass
freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Republicans are just as culpable as the Democrats, because, despite
holding a plurality in both houses of Congress, they have been
unwilling to confront the obstructionists head-on, through rules
changes, Constitutional challenges or even staying up around the clock
to outlast threatened filibusters. Both parties should be ashamed and
both should be held to account for their actions or lack thereof.

President Bush has made a good start in naming strict constructionists to the Supreme Court. If the Democrats want to oppose them on ideological grounds, Republicans should invoke the so-called nuclear option.

Next, we should consider a new amendment to the Constitution
clarifying the First Amendment so that religious expression—even in
government venues—cannot be abridged.

Finally, we all need to adopt the tactics of the opposition and begin
engaging in acts of civil disobedience. If the Mayor of San Francisco
can thwart the law and perform gay marriage ceremonies, then why can't
our local judges and elected officials follow the courageous example
of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who sacrificed all as a
result of placing a Ten Commandments monument in the State Supreme
Court building?

Elected officials of all parties across the United States need to dust
off those nativity scenes and brazenly plant them in front of City
Hall. Church congregations, carrying Bibles, crosses and other
overtly religious symbols should march uninvited in city "Winter
Festival" parades, then stage sit-ins when police attempt to deny
their right to express their religious convictions.

Voters everywhere should demand that candidates for office state their
position on Christmas and freedom of religious expression. If they do
not pass the liberty litmus test, they should be soundly defeated.

And each of us, when confronted with the politically correct
salutation, "Happy Holidays," should hold up our heads, look the
greeter in the eye and loudly proclaim, "Merry Christmas!"

Put "Christmas" Back in Merry Christmas

2005-11-21T13:56:00.000-08:00

This year, I took a stand.

Instead of wimping out on my department’s corporate Christmas card with “Happy Holidays,” “Season’s Greetings,” or some other phrase designed to avoid using the word Christmas, the card now reads: “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.”

I didn’t want to exclude non-Christians, or even pagan Democrats, so “Happy Holidays” is there as a nod to their beliefs. I presume that Jewish Americans will be equally inclusive, wishing people “Happy Hanukah and Season’s Greetings.” (Or is it “Chanukah”?) And Kwanza celebrants will surely want to embrace members of other ethnic groups with a general recognition of their traditions.

I suppose that atheists who still want to get in on the spirit of the times can send cards, if they send cards, with a Druidized “Welcome Winter Solstice” message. They aren’t very inclusive, so they probably won’t go beyond that.

But I’m saying “Merry Christmas.” I hope you will, too.

Who is to Blame for 9/11?

2005-11-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

Who is the one person, above all others, we should blame for 9/11 and all the terror attacks that preceded it and will follow as we fight the War on Terror?

Osama bin Laden? Nope. He’s just the latest in a long line of terrorists.

George W. Bush? Well, there are a lot of Democrats out there who would like to pin that on the president, along with World War II, the Great Depression and probably even the Civil War, if they thought they could get away with it, but Bush is the one who is fighting—and winning—the War on Terror.

No, that honor goes to none other than the worst president in the history of the United States, James Earl Carter.

Liberals and America bashers will be going apoplectic about this moment, but when you think about it, Jimmy Carter is to blame for all the murder and mayhem, death and destruction we have endured for the last 25 years or so at the hands of Islamofascist terrorists. And it all began on November 4, 1979.

That was the day, you’ll recall, that a foreign government invaded the United States—our embassy in Teheran—and took 66 American diplomats, military personnel and government workers prisoner, holding them for 444 long days. It was an act of war, as blatant as any in the history of conflict, and our weak and irresolute President Jimmy Carter did… absolutely nothing.

What he should have done, and what George W. Bush no doubt would have done had he been president at the time, was to tell the Iranians that this action would not stand. What he should have done is mustered our military forces and sent them post haste to the Middle East. He should have told the Iranians that we would be landing U.S. military transport aircraft, supported by fighters, with bombers waiting in the wings, and that any shots fired at our aircraft or hair harmed on a hostage’s head would result in an immediate declaration of war, employing anything and everything in our arsenal to destroy Iran.

By dithering, locking himself in the White House and refusing to act, Jimmy Carter revealed himself to be a coward and his nation a paper tiger that could be humiliated before the entire world by a ragtag band of student radicals. His failure to uphold his oath to protect and defend the United States and its people led to all that has come since, culminating in 9/11 and the necessity of waging a War on Terror with only a handful of allies standing beside us.

Some will say I am being too harsh on a good man. Perhaps, but this “good man” has the blood of several thousand innocent, good men and women on his hands—the victims of 9/11 and all the other terrorist acts that emanated from his incredible failure of nerve, and the men and women of our military who have so honorably sacrificed their lives in correcting Carter’s folly.

But cowardice is not Jimmy Carter’s only legacy. He compounded his colossal mistake by ripping asunder America’s human intelligence capabilities, cutting intelligence budgets and gutting our military. And he added insult to injury by joining the chorus of Bush haters and second-guessers as we took the fight to the enemy, even to the point of sitting next to that notorious anti-American blowhard and liar Michael Moore at the Democrats’ Convention and criticizing President Bush abroad.

Carter's conduct, both as President and since, has been nothing short of disgraceful.

A century from now, when the history of this turbulent era is written, George W. Bush is likely to be rated among the very best American presidents. I wouldn't be surprised to see his face on Mt. Rushmore. And Jimmy Carter? Well, presidents are judged by how well or how poorly they respond to the great challenges of their day, and whether they leave a lasting legacy to the nation they led. By those criteria, I would rank him dead last, the worst president in the history of the Republic.

Democrats: All Hat and No Cattle

2005-11-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

There's a saying here in Texas to describe a person who lacks the courage of his convictions: All hat and no cattle. That pretty much sums up the Democrats.

Yesterday, after months of Democrat bluster and revisionism over the War in Iraq, Congressional Republicans finally showed some spine and told the Democrats to put their money where their mouth is. In response to an absurd resolution proposed by ex-Marine John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, urging the immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, Republicans said, "Okay, let's put it to a vote."

The resolution was resoundingly defeated by a vote of 403 to 3, with Murtha himself voting against his own proposal. Nancy Pelosi and a host of other loudmouth Democrats, who have been criticizing the war ad nauseum but offering nothing in the way of alternative policy, also voted down the resolution.

They tried to spin it, as did their allies in the press. Murtha tried to say his words were twisted, that his resolution called for redeployment "as soon as practicable." But in his grandstanding remarks introducing his cut-and-run bill, he clearly said "immediate withdrawal" and the resolution itself immediately terminated America's mission in Iraq. Democrats and the so-called mainstream media predictably called the vote a Republican stunt, and many liberal newspapers carried the story as a below-the-fold afterthought.

But the real political stunt has been the persistent drumbeat of negativism Democrats have been pounding in a dishonest effort to smear the President and undermine our troops in Iraq. Yesterday, they revealed their true colors: Yellow, yellow and yellow. They didn't even have the courage to back their own proposal.

And if they don't have the courage to stand up for what they believe in, how can we trust them to have the courage to protect and defend America in what is sure to be a prolonged war against evil Islamic terrorists?

Cut and Run Democrats

2005-11-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

Now, at last, the truth is coming out about the Democrats: They cannot be trusted to defend America against the terrorists.

They tried to trot out a "war hero" in John Kerry in the last presidential election, but he had feet of clay. Veterans such as myself remember how he lied about the U.S. military in Vietnam and how he dishonored American heroes. The Swift Boat Veterans called his bluff and Kerry went down.

The Democrats have been dishonest about their "policy" toward the battle for Iraq and the overall War on Terror all along. They knew they couldn't reveal their true intentions--to cut and run, leaving the initiative to the terrorists--so they instead decided to use the Big Lie to undercut President Bush and plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the American people.

Thanks to the President's late response to this assault on the truth, and thanks to weak-kneed Republicans in Congress, up to now, it has been a one-sided debate, with liars (the Democrats) carrying the day.

What happens if we do cut and run? The terrorists will be emboldened. Because they are ruthless, they will crush any hope of democracy in Iraq and the forces of evil will take over, just as they did in Afghanistan. Once again, terrorists will have a secure base from which to plot acts of mass murder against Americans. We will have turned the clock back to tit-for-tat: The terrorists kill Americans, and we send a cruise missile up a camel's butt. They kill more Americans and we launch another tepid response. We will have ceded the battlefield to the terrorists and that battlefield will be on our shores.

The Democrats have no plan other than to trash the President. They would gladly put all of us at risk if it gains them a temporary political advantage.

I don't care of Pennsylvania Rep. Murtha is a decorated Vietnam veteran or not. What matters is whether he will protect the American people today. The answer is no.

This war is every bit as important as was World War II. The outcome will decide our fate as a civilization. I would rather fight the terrorists now, before they gain access to nuclear weapons, than after they have vaporized an American city. And rest assured, if we cut and run, the unthinkable will come to pass.

Fight Fire with Fire

2005-11-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

Republicans,

The Democrats' largely unchallenged efforts to criminalize political debate and impugn the integrity of conservatives with false charges of ethics violations are working. And the tactic puts all of you at risk. Sen. Bill Frist, Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rep. Tom Delay, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and ousted former PBS Board Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson are but a few of the people who have been subjected to Democrat smear campaigns. More are sure to follow unless and until Republicans wake up and turn the tables.

We are at a disadvantage in that lying is not something that comes to us easily, but in this case, lying isn't necessary. Democrats have given us ample ammunition to fight fire with fire, if only we have the courage to use it.

Sandy Berger stole classified papers, destroyed them and lied about it, yet escaped with a slap on the wrist. He ought to be sitting in jail.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller has admitted on national television to revealing plans for the attack on Iraq to Saddam Hussein ally, Syria, one of the world's leading state sponsors of terror. According to Sen. Rockefeller, this was shortly after 9/11. He should be investigated, by a special prosecutor, to determine whether his actions led to the evacuation of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to Syria, whether they cost the lives of American military forces, and whether they constituted treason.

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame should be investigated, again by a special prosecutor, to determine if his so-called mission to Niger was an attempt by rogue elements within the CIA to unlawfully undermine the policies of the President of the United States. Why wasn't Wilson required to sign a confidentiality statement? Why wasn't he required to provide a written after-action report? Why was he given permission by the CIA to publish details of his "mission" in the national press? Why did Wilson lie about the Vice President's knowledge of his so-called findings? Who else within the CIA was involved?

A special prosecutor needs to be appointed to get to the bottom of the very serious national security implications of The Washington Post story on the existence and general location of secret CIA prisons for terrorists. Who were the Post's sources? Was a crime committed?

Rogue Austin, Texas, prosecutor Ronnie Earle, should be investigated for misuse of his public office to intimidate and punish his perceived political enemies. Did he commit any crimes in leveling false allegations against duly elected officials, in charging Tom Delay with a "crime" that wasn't even on the books and in grand jury shopping?

The only way to stop the Democrats abuse of the American judicial system and ethics rules is to show them that this is a zero-sum game by turning the tables. Would beating them at their own game be destructive and distasteful? You bet. But it would put a stop to this nonsense.

W's Choice is OUR Choice

2005-07-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation offers President Bush the opportunity to accomplish one of the things we elected him to do: Move the Supreme Court back toward the real center, which is made up of Americans who love their country, believe in its traditions, respect the Constitution and want to be protected from criminals, terrorists, busybody athiests, the ACLU, Amnesty International, Michael Moore, and incompetent, unpatriotic, lying leftist Democrats.

W should appoint an unabashedly conservative jurist; the Democrats will oppose anybody who is not a leftist, so the President ought to just go for broke. Senator Frist should go nuclear, invoking the Constitutional option to break the Democrat filibuster that is sure to come. Make the Seven Dwarf Republicans put up or shut up (and make sure those who elected them hold them accountable).

Democrats and their Republican Dwarf allies are thwarting the will of the people who elected President Bush for a number of good reasons, including taking back the court from the activists who are undermining everything this country stands for, including, most recently, property rights. It is the President's right and the President's duty to appoint Supreme Court Justices who reflect his, and our, political philosophy.

The Democrats lost the election and will stoop to anything, including violating the Constitution or just ignoring it, to impose their bankrupt policies on us anyway. You cannot compromise with unethical people, and the Democrats are thoroughly unethical.

Stand your ground, Mr. President.